1974 Raleigh Grand Prix (Nov 2011)

I got this bike, along with a white Peugeot U0-8, from my favorite bike finding location Bike Works the local bike co-op.  They do good work for the community, they have great prices on project bikes and they usually have a good variety -whats not to like?  Little did I know when I selected this Bronze Green beauty that I would be in for some major education.

It was your typical musty dusty 70's 10 speed and I figured hey "how hard can this be"  the cotters on the Takara were no problem so this should be a breeze..... WRONG.

I started as normal with taking the bike apart down to the frame and fork.  When I got to the crank that is when the problems began.  My use-a-big-C-clamp method with a socket over the threaded end of the cotter method which had worked great on the Takara totally failed.  The process devolved into bitter feud with me a hammer and a punch on one side and the cotter on the other.  Long story short I effectively wrecked the crank removing the cotter.  I went to a bad place, fortunately no pictures exist of that fateful day.  In the end I spent more $$$ on a bike tool than ever before and got a Bikesmith design cotter press and in subsequent rehabs of cottered cranks it has served flawlessly.

Here's a shot of just how grimy an old 10 speed can get also notice the cool, proprietary brake cable holder on the Gran Prix.  Word to the wise do NOT lose the small cable bolt that screws into that bridge.

So I destroyed the cottered crank, no big deal I had a spare 3 piece bottom bracket and I picked up a vintage 3 piece crank set so problem solved....WRONG.  Raleigh in their infinite wisdom had their own threading on some of the early 70s bikes, not British standard noooo they used a Raleigh proprietary threading so my British bottom bracket cups for the 3 piece crank did not work with the Grand Prix bb.  At that point I walked away from this bike and worked on other projects for a few months.  When I came back to it I ended up using the original cottered crank BB cups, that I had saved thank goodness!, and got a used cottered bb spindle and yes another freaking cottered crank.  Oh the irony.  To top it off I realized on getting home that the crankset I had selected was a 52/45 set up.  In hilly Seattle a 45-28 low gear ain't gonna cut it so I had to scrouge around to swap the 45t inner  for a more manageable 40t chain ring.  Finally the crankset all came together.

After the *&^%$#@ crank situation the rest of the bike went together fairly easily.  I did some white accents that I think turned out well

It  ended up being a pretty nice bike when finished, that sold to a friend of a friend who wanted to start bike commuting.  So that whole thing about avoiding cottered cranks if you are a first timer in my last post- this is why ;-)