The ridiculous pink fixie, part 3, fork/headset/crank/ installation, and the goofups that ensued.

OK,I'm going to skip the fork/headset instructions, as after looking at the Park Tools instructions, I installed my headset bearings upside down "The open side of the ball retainer should face the cone shaped race, not the cup shaped race."

I thought it was smoother with the bearings facing the cups, but I goofed, so follow the instructions when you do this. The proper Park Tools Instructions are here - http://www.parktool.com/repair/readhowto.asp?id=127

UPDATE 3/23/09 - After further discussion/disassembly/reassembly, it looks as thoug the open side of the ball retainer does in fact face the cups on this particular old Schwinn. I tried it both ways, and it was a mess to do it per the instructions, as the bearings felt completely wrong. After discussion with Bikerowave manager and guru Steve Mattson, it was pretty clear that I'd done it right the first time.

Here's how it looked once I got it done.



With the stem installed.



Then it was time to chase and face the bottom bracket. This is done with a bottom bracket chaser.



To chase your bottom bracket threads, look at the tool, figure out which side is left and right, then put the tool back together through your bottom bracket, like so:



Then, put a tray underneath the bottom bracket, squirt a little cutting fluid,



and, assuming you're using a standard threaded bottom bracket, turn the handles on each side toward the back of the bike (the right side of the bottom bracket is reverse threaded).

Then, replace the thread chasing implement with the facing cutter and remove the paint/powdercoat around the edge of your bottom bracket so your bottom bracket will fit smoothly.



It should end up looking something like this:



Now, you get to install the bottom bracket.



This one is a Shimano UN-54, which is more or less the standard square taper bottom bracket if you're looking for good quality and value. If you're making a conversion, you can try using your existing bottom bracket, but if you're going to be using a new crank, and you're building a fixie, you should probably get the right size bottom bracket for that crank, so your chainline will be straight. In this case, I need a 107mm bottom bracket. (This is the width of the spindle, the bottom bracket shell itself is usually 68mm for road bikes, 73mm for mountain bikes, measure BEFORE you buy.)

To install the bottom bracket, put the bottom bracket in the shell, hand tighten the cups on each side, find the right sized bottom bracket tool,



and wrench the cups down snugly, but not so snugly that they interfere with the smooth rotation of the spindle.



Once you've got your bottom bracket installed, it's time to install the crank. On a standard square taper, this is a simple matter of tightening down a crank nut on each side, or with this bottom bracket, tightening down a crank bolt on each side.
(Note, when doing this, please don't hang on to your bottom bracket tool while you're using an allen wrench, or you may be happily cranking down on your crank bolt, only to hear an awkward grating sound as the bottom bracket tool scrapes a nice gouge out of your beautiful blue anodizing, only millimeters away from the tape that was protecting your crank.)



Ouch. Luckily that's the sort of thing you're not going to notice easily, and aluminum doesn't rust, so it's not really a concern. Once installed, the cranks look pretty good.