Jim,
I had the exact same problem with my 1965 Tigra. It has Durax-Special Courses steel cottered cranks with a Campy cottered bottom bracket marked 35x1.
The bike shipped with the drive side crank arm removed. I couldn't get the left side cotter out even with a VAR cotter press so I removed the BB via the adjustable cup.
I tried removing the fixed with a VAR fixed cup tool. Since it was a Swiss bike I figured that it had a LH thread. When it didn't budge, I decided it was either in there for good or if it was French RH thread I tightened it further so I left it in place since I didn't want to risk damaging the frame. I cleaned out both cups the hard way!
I have 10 Motobecanes, 3 have Swiss BBs and 7 are French!
As the SNL character Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say: ""Well it just goes to show you, it's always something [you just don't know]..."
Chas. Colerich Oakland, CA USA
jim abt wrote:
> HI all: Yes John. I had a recent quite similar thing happen where I had a Tigra, made in Switzerland. I bought it from a bike shop in Switzerland. Got to where I wanted to overhaul the bottom bracket and had thought it would certianly be a swiss threaded BB bearing cup right? In fact I was so cinvinced that it was I had people holding on to leverage bars in the headset of the frame while I torqued down with a bar to get this thing loose knowing that there are times when they can get so tight (and this was an older vintage bike that had never had this off before). Finally after having it to the local bike shop using different tools to do the same (we literally had torqued down so hard that it was starting to "face off" steel from the bottom bracket shell of the frame and the levers were bending) I decided to email the shop that I bought it from where they tell me that there is a good to better chance that the threads are FRENCH where everything is exactly the same in diamet
er
> and thread pitch as a Swiss thread except that they are right handed instead of left handed!!! Which meant that now we have this sucka so tight in the wrong direction. I had to graind doan the handle to a Pedros to fi inot a pipe that I had handy and eventually got this bitch off. But what in the world!! Did the manufacture of this idea have a little demon in the corner watching while I was turning blue in the face and ripping a new anal opening to get this damn thing off or what?! Seeya
>
> Jim Abt
> Wausau, Wi. USA