And then two weeks ago I decided I had to get into the bottom bracket and overhaul that before I could go any further, before I could even make any more decisions.
The crank is stiff and must be removed and the bottom bracket cleaned and greased before I can really evaluate the three-speed AW3 rear hub. But to get inside that bottom bracket I must remove the cotter pins that hold the crank on. At 53 years old, they were not going to give up easily.
My first attempt was to use an unmounted small bench vise. After loosening and removing the nut, I put the vise so that one part of the jaw was on the screw end and the other on a socket I placed over the opposite end of the pin. I began cranking away on the vise. I had sprayed the area liberally with penetrating oil, but nothing was giving.
I used a pipe to give me additional leverage and got it as tight as I could, then just left it overnight. The next morning when I tried to tighten it more the vise just slipped off.
At this point I've purchased a new crank cotter press from Mark Stonich at Bikesmith Design in Minneapolis. Here's what it looks like:
So this is a special tool designed by Mark specifically to work on these old, stuck cotter pins. I also got another handy tool from him, a fixed cup removal tool:
Assuming all goes well with getting the cotter pins removed, I'll be using this tool to remove the fixed cup inside the bottom bracket so that I can get it all cleaned up and rebuilt.
