Lewisg wrote:Would anybody mind providing me with a simpletons guide to which crankset/parts I need to look for to go with my Lambert porthole chainring (obviously excepting Lambert cranks)!?
I've seen TAs recommended and they certainly seem the best choice but does it have to be a 5-hole crank? Similar guidance for the inner chainring etc etc.
I don't know if I'm saying what is already well known, but the Lambert / Viscount crank (the drive side one anyway) that fits the porthole chainring has the five fixing holes on a 50.4 mm pitch circle diameter (pcd) - i.e. the circle, centred on the centre of the spindle, on which the holes lie. I don't know why it's 50.4mm. This is just a whisker under the metric equivalent of two inches (which would be 50.8mm). Indeed, the cranks that fit this standard are sometimes described as 50.8 or even 51mm pcd. Back in the day, it was quite a common standard, particularly for cranksets intended for touring, perhaps because it was easier to fit a small third chainring if the spider was small?
As you say, TA made a popular crankset ('Cyclotouriste') with the 50.4 pcd. Stronglight was another - I think their offering is the '49D' model (confusing eh?). These are often seen on eBay, although the price is creeping up and you might expect to pay £40 or more for a decent used set. Stronglight is more desirable than the TA version, but looks less like a Viscount crank because of the different fluting. Quite a few other manufacturers made cranks that will fit the Viscount chain rings - I have a Zeus one for instance and even Shimano for a brief period produced a version in the early Deore group. All these are alloy, there were also steel versions produced (Williams?)
With regard to fixing all this together, to assemble fully a Lambert / Viscount double chainset requires seventeen fixings of three different sorts, counting each assembly of screw, nut, washers and spacer (as required) as one fixing. And of course, you need two sizes of Allen key, a spanner and a screw driver. Apart from the fitting of the crank to the large chainwheel, hese are likely to be different from any of the fixings used by TA, Stronglight &c.
A big question is however, what bottom bracket spindle you will fit the crank to. If everything is Viscount from the same era, there is a reasonable chance that the tapers will be compatible and give you the correct chainline. However, Lambert / Viscount changed tapers from time to time, including the notorious untapered early version, and there is no guarantee that a particular manufacturer's crank will fit well with a Viscount spindle, or
vice versa. But I'll leave it to someone else to talk tapers.
Hope this is helpful or interesting.
b
