OK, lets do the bottom bracket / crank now. I've been meaning to do this all year, but found both my pedal arms are seized good style, having been on for 40 years, so I removed both 15mm lock-nuts and after two weeks of hard riding the left-side pedal arm finally popped off. I forgot to bring the lock nuts with me, so had to complete my ride home, some 2.5 miles, using only my right pedal, which amused pedestrians and other cyclists alike!
As you can see below, the BB could be worse after four decades, but is still pretty gunked up and nasty.
The locking-ring and lock-side bottom bracket came off pretty easily, but the drive-side pedal-arm would still not budge even after much soaking in WD40 and various manipulation, so I had to just do the job with the arm and chain-wheel in place. I did this by wedging a 16mm spanner in between the chain-wheel and bottom-bracket and just about got it moving enough to remove. Shame, as this side of the BB is painted along with the frame, but ah well after a bit of hammering the paint broke and it unscrewed.
Both sides of the BB and the skewer cleaned up real nice with plenty of WD40 and elbow-grease (above). Sadly, I could not get it into work this weekend to polish any components or beat the grease off the skewer with a brush-wheel. Next, I applied plenty of new grease to the drive-side BB and fitted all new 1/4-inch ball bearings (below), even though the originals were OK and could be re-used. The Grand Prix and other Raleigh cranks of this era take 11 of the 1/4" ball-bearings in each race.
I then caked the bearings in lots of fresh grease and also put a liberal coating of grease up the length of the skewer to prevent corrosion and just make sure there was plenty more grease in the bottom-bracket, as per John Gurnee's restoration of Craig's Raleigh Grand Prix in this blog - http://johns-recycled-bicycle.blogspot.com/2012/06/craigs-raleigh-grand-prix-restoration.html
Next was the lock-side BB, caked with fresh grease and 11 new ball-bearings.
I then cleaned up the inside of the bottom-bracket on the frame, which is in pretty good shape (I really should re-spray the frame while doing these jobs to preserve it, but don't want to lose the Carlton factory colours and stickers yet) and sprayed a good bit of WD40 up the frame-tubes the night before doing this, which can do no harm.
And, while the chain-wheels were off the bike I though it would be a good time to strip them down and clean up the areas I previously could not reach along with the screws. They are a mixture of Japanese Sakae and Shimano all-alloy lightweight parts, which I love and are in really great condition for their age, so I am pleased they have all come up so nicely.
Last was re-fitting the bottom-bracket / crank assembly. This was quite difficult balancing the bike while the drive-side pedal and arm were still attached without losing any bearings from the open races or getting grease everywhere, but was more than doable. The whole assembly looks much, much neater now and does not creak and 'boing' as I lean the bike under acceleration, but again it's a shame I couldn't get the BB parts into work and polish them properly. Still, a good job that's been overdue for ages!
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