The Thin Man 

When I finished my last French bike, I said out loud, in my shop, late at night, "NO MORE FRENCH BIKES!" And that has been true as I haven't purchased any French bikes but I did still have one hanging around and am now building it for my mother-in-law as a grocery-getter.

So, this little Motobecane has a somewhat low cut steerer tube. I made the mistake of tossing the old headset because it was so cruddy and banged up but now I'm really kicking myself as I've had to cobble together a headset. This shouldn't be a problem but it is since the adjustable race is fairly tall, as shown here:


The washer has grooves that seat into the adjustable race. But, it has a 5mm stack height and doesn't leave any threads for the locknut.





My question is, are there thinner grooved washers out there? If not, I'm not sure of my next steps other than finding a more streamlined French-threaded headset. And I'd rather not have to pull the races out if I don't have to.

What say ye, C&V'ers?

bulgie 

Shorten the head tube, by as much as you need to fit any headset you want. That can be done with a hacksaw if you're handy with the saw, but you'll want to face the cuts afterward to be parallel. The most common facing tool also reams the bore of the tube at the same time, and they might ream the tube too large, to where your headset will fit loose. If that happens you can use the special Loctite formula made for fitting loose cyclindrical shafts and bearings, I forget the part number. It's very strong. Or you can upgrade the headset to something made to the Campy dimension, a little larger than most OEM French cups. That's why the reamers are larger, they're sized to fit the Campy dimension. Most other high-quality headset brands eventually switched to the Campy dimension, so if you buy a new headset, it wouldn't have to be Campy brand, just Campy-compatible.

To avoid reaming, you can often disassemble the reamer/facer to take the reamer parts off and just use the facer. But that usually requires a spacer to go where the reamer was, to hold everything concentric while facing.

Anyway, not a job a home mechanic can usually do. You need a very experienced and capable LBS. I don't know who's good in Corvallis, maybe you do or someone else here might know.

BTW this steerer-too-short problem has nothing to do with it being French. People make this mistake on all manner of bikes.

Good luck! Let us know how it turns out.

Mark B

bikemig 

You only need the complete top of the HS. Put up a WTB in the C&V for sale forum and see what shows up. The tops, unlike the bottoms, don't tend to go bad so it wouldn't surprise me if something pops up. If you get a HS without the toothed washer that should solve your stack height problem but you will want some measurements before buying. If there is a bike co-op nearby, you might check that as well. The downside is that toothed washer design is very common for French headsets.

VO has a reasonably priced French threaded headset at $32 so if the stack height works, $32 plus shipping is the most you'll pay.

rustystrings61 

If memory serves the Velo Orange headset has a tall stack height, more like Campagnolo NR than the 32 mm or so like an old Stronglight P3. The last time i had this problem I got a generic vintage Motobecane headset off the ‘bay - in my case I combined the top of that with a Tange Passage lower to accommodate a 26.4 crown. Allegedly, Motobecane used an OEM grade headset made by Stronglight.

bikemig 

The VO is a tall HS. Short stack French threaded headsets can be difficult to find. I needed a P3 for a Mercier 300 and it took me quite a while to find one.

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...mm-really.html

PhilFo 

Grab an identical locking spacer from your choice of source, and have at it with a grinding wheel or a dremel tool.

El Chaba

If you can find a Lightrace headset, you may be fine without modifying the frame. They had a stack height of 32-33 mm as I recall. Decent headsets as well.

beicster 

If the adjustable race and the washer are steel, I’d be tempted to find a machine shop with a surface grinder that has a magnetized surface plate. They could take the teeth off and a few millimeters off the washer as well.

El Chaba

This may or may not be the time or place, but I have a few comments on the Velo Orange French threaded headset. What in the world is the intended use of that headset? At a stack height of 41 mm, it is incompatible as a replacement for almost all bike boom era French headsets. There are no new bikes being made with French threading, so there is no market for a new bike installation where the fork can be cut to fit. There may be a few bikes around that could get enough extra steerer by removing the centerpull cable hanger and either converting to sidepulls or rigging up another hanger solution. That only gains 2-3 mm which probably is not enough. My guess is that there a number of these headsets installed with just a thread or two of the locknut engaged. A new replacement headset installation should not send somebody to somebody with facing and reaming tools for 99% of the cases. It’s a stupid product, IMHO, and not of particularly good quality.

oneclick 

Take the fork out, and hold it in a vice the with steerer tube upwards, proud of the vice top by about an inch.
Put the locknut on the fork, flat side facing upwards.
Put the race on, saw-tooth side pointing up.
Adjust the race so the saw-points are just proud of the steerer tube, and lock it there by jamming the locknut and race together.
File the saw-points off, using the top of the fork as a guide to make sure you have the surface flat and square when you are done.
Throw away the toothed washer.

Those saw-tooth arrangements are a Bad Idea.
Without them you can get *exactly* the headset adjustment that is right, with them you are limited to the 1/30th of a mm (or so, I can't remember how many points there are) steps set by each separate alignment of points.
That's 0.03mm; good balls are ground to less than 0.001, thirty times smaller.
A saw-tooth headset pretty much guarantees that it will either be too loose or too tight.
(The pin-and-hole arrangements are Bad in the same way, but that's an easy fix; knock off the pin.)

rustystrings61 

Amen, brother! The VO headset is awesome if you have one of the relatively few French bikes that came stock with a Campagnolo headset. That leaves out the vast majority of PX-10s that came with Stronglight V4s, and it towers over the size of a Stronglight P3. Seriously, some importer/re-brander should sit down with Tange and have them make the Tange Levin in French compatible mode. They probably still have French cutting dies unless they scrapped them for tax purposes. If offered in a couple of varieties - 27.0 and 26.4 crown races, perhaps? - they could supply a headset compatible with pretty much ALL French bikes, even down to the lowly Peugeot A-08.

My related rant - there are no words for how much I wish Wheels Manufacturing or some other quality firm would do a run of cones for Normandy Luxe Competition hubs. There were NEVER spare cones for those, and they are shockingly smooth and came as OEM hubs on lots of quality French bikes, and more than a few British machines as well. For that matter, it was the stock hubset on my Austrian Puch Royal X. It's an odd cone profile and not interchangeable with anything else. One modest run spec'ed by a Francophile company could probably restore lots of vintage bikes.

tiger1964 

I've had that conversation with Igor at VO and he's aware of it. It could be (a) he has a lot of inventory to use up first or (b) his chosen manufacturer cannot build one with a lower stack height. That said, nothing wrong with more of us letting him know we are interested. Meanwhile, my Gitane has a headset in rough shape and I cope with it. Bummer, as the VO headsets I have on other bikes are great.

Stupid, stupid me -- I took the Gitane's frame to a frame builder to have some braze-ons added before having it powdercoated, it would be been simple to have him install a longer steerer.

The Thin Man 

Thanks everyone for the great thoughts, suggestions and techniques. There is no way I'd modify the frame/fork. That's nuts. There's another way. And that way, to me, sounds like what oneclick and PhilFo suggest by filing the saw-points off the adjustable race. Then put the toothed washer in the headset parts bin for another day (that hopefully I'll never need because, remember, NO MORE FRENCH BIKES!).

3alarmer 

....said every American tourist who ever vacationed in France, at one time or another.

repechage

key words there - one modest run.
high set up cost.

bulgie 

I like that idea except you can't put a headset locknut on upside down, there's a flange on the nut that prevents it. You could remove the flange but then it'll rust there.

If you have a second French thread headset, you could use the other screwed race as the jam-nut for securing the one to have its teeth removed.

The home dentistry (tooth removal) will work, but to tighten the upper race against the locknut you'll need to grab it with pliers, which can munch up the chrome, if you care about that. BITD there were headset pliers made just for that, grabbing the screwed race. Some of them had leather strips glued onto the plier faces to prevent damage to the chrome.

Much easier to shorten the head tube than to replace the steerer. Steerer replacement is definitely not "simple"

OK, I'm proudly nuts then. Shortening the head tube is a 15-minute job for me, and the most excellent way around this problem IMHO. Much more of a hassle for you though, since you lack the tools. In your case, yes, removing the headset teeth makes more sense.

Just keep in mind, if not done with some precision (keeping the filed face very perpendicular to the steerer axis), the off-square surface will kick the screwed race off-square too, since there's always slop in the threads. Then you'll have a headset that never adjusts quite right, and which may wear out faster. Maybe file it down until the original bottoms of the teeth are still just barely visible all around, a good visual aid to keeping it square.

If you know someone with a lathe, even a little hobby mini-lathe, that would make quick work of the tooth removal and do it squarely. Work-holding might be an issue; the obvious way to hold it is a short piece of French threaded steerer in the lathe chuck. Easy if you have a junk pile with a dead French fork you can lop the top of the steerer from, but not everyone has access to that.

I'll offer to do it for you for free (it's a 5-minute job for me, max) and I have a French steerer to hold it with, but I know you probably don't want to wait for the round trip thru the postal service, you want it done yesterday. I completely understand, but keep me in mind if you're not in a hurry. I even have a 25 mm collet, which is a more precise way of work-holding than the typical 3-jaw chuck method. All it'll cost you is postage, and time.

Mark B

tiger1964 

I would not dispute that. In my case, I just went and looked at the bike -- I'd be confident of removing (having removed) 2mm from the top and 2mm more from the bottom. Maybe. Enough to make a different headset work? Pretty sure for the VO unit I'd need more. OP's scenario might be different.

Presumably, especially with 1961 frame geometry, I would not notice the minuscule change to head tube angle from cutting the bottom lug.

Bad Lag

These toothed headset are just crazy. Why do they exist? What's the supposed advantage?

1. Don't mess with the fork or frame.

2. If it were mine, I'd lay a big mill bastard file flat on my work bench and file away the teeth. You'll know it's flat by monitoring the depth of the remaining tooth pattern.

I might do some/most of the work on a stationary belt sander but would do the finish work by hand.

3. I think I might do only one of the two pieces but doing both would look a lot better.

4. Make up for the now-shortened stack height with a spacer.

5. Rust can be prevented with paint or a skim coat of grease.

bikemig 

I know a few posters on this thread are not fans of the toothed headsets. I like them. They are dead easy to adjust. When you lock the top nut down, you don't disturb the adjustment. IMO, they work well.

spclark 

Was gonna be what I suggested but beicster beat me to it.

bulgie 

Or with any geometry really. When you shorten the bottom of the HT, the frame pivots down around the rear hub axle, about a meter away. 2 mm off results in an angle change (steepening) of 0.1°
Bottom bracket height also lowers, by much less than 1 mm.

My old boss Bill Davidson was fanatical about the toptube being exactly level. He designed and built the frame differently depending on whether you were using a Dura-Ace headset or a Campy, which were different by 1.5 mm. But we measured lots of frames of different eras and it's safe to say almost no one made them with the TT quite that level. Angles vary from published specs, on most any bike you can name, sometimes by a lot, and people almost never notice.

I talked to a guy who worked at Bianchi's Reparto Corsa, where the Team racing frames were made. They had no drawings, no CAD, and only primitive jigs with no calibrations on them. They had a guy who just "knew" what length and angle to miter a downtube to, and they'd try it in the jig. If it was a little too long, they might cut it again. If it was a little too short, they'd adjust the jig to close up the gap. They didn't know what the angles or BB height were going to be until they put wheels in the finished frameset. This story is from when they were making Gianni Bugno's new frame, when he was the reigning world pro road champion, so circa '92. Maybe they put more care into a production model than they did for the world champ? That's actually possible. I doubt they were any better than that in '61 though.

Mark B

Andy_K 

I had this problem with my PX-10. @bulgie advised me to shorten the head tube, and I also didn't want to do it. My problem was compounded by the fact that I wanted to get a brake hanger in there. I ended up finding an unbranded French headset on eBay that had a shorter stack height.

A few pics...

The "problem" headset:



The lower cup was also bigger than it really needed to be:



Various toothed washer and hanger combinations I found:



The shorter headset:


The shorter headset fully installed:



Note the lower headset cup compared to the problematic one above. If it helps, you can mix and match top and bottom cups, and I think you can even use a non-French lower cup as long as it's properly matched with the crown race.

bikemig 

I think this should work. Here is Sheldon Brown's crib sheet on the dimensional differences between French and British bikes.

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/velos.html

bulgie 

Yeah with those Nervex Pro lugs you have another reason not to shorten the HT — those added rings on the top and bottom of the lugs. They aren't necessary structurally, but they're cool, and iconic.
I cut them off once, to put a Campy headset on a '71 Super Course, but I was a teenager at the time. I probably wouldn't do that today, I'm more of a conservationist bent now.


Your solution, find a headset that fits, is most excellent.

Mark B

downtube42

Yet another approach might be to sell the French frame on here, and buy almost anything else of similar vintage. Problem solved!

Edit: I'm also in the NO MORE FRENCH BIKES camp, no matter how sweet the ride.