French Bike Rebuild

My last post showed how to take an old French Motobecane Nomade apart for service. Now I'll show how to put it back together. First I cleaned and repacked the bottom bracket bearings with fresh grease. I also cleaned out the cups and the spindle before reassembly:

With the cups, bearings, and spindle back in place, you need to adjust the bearings so that the spindle turns freely without play. This is done by turning the left side cup in or out until the bearings aren't loose, and don't bind. Then you tighten the lockring to hold the adjustment:

Next I moved on to the wheel bearings. I don't have a removal tool for this freewheel, but luckily you can actually repack the bearings with a Normandy freewheel in place.

Loosen the locknut on the left side, then remove the nut, spacers, and cone:

Now slide the axle out:

And clean everything (there's plenty of room with this freewheel):

Now just pack the bearing cups with grease, put the nice clean ball bearings back in place, then reassemble the axle. The bearing adjustment is similar to the bottom bracket, just make sure the axle turns freely and the wheel has no play in it when you're done. Moving on to the headset:

Clean everything, then pack the bearing cups and retainers with grease. Next you can slide the fork back into the head tube and secure it with the top race. Replace any spacers or brake hangers as well:

Once again you need to dial in the headset's bearing adjustment. Just make sure you can turn the fork easily, and it doesn't rock back and forth in the frame. You need to screw the top race in to tighten the bearings, and unscrew it to loosen them. As with the other bearings, the adjustment is sensitive, and 1/8th of a turn can make a big difference. Once you find the perfect setting, lock it in with the top nut:

Here I put the wheels back on. The tires are still good, and definitely not the originals. Since they're not dry rotted or cracking, and still have lots of tread I get to reuse them:

Time to put the cranks back on. For square tapered cranks like these, the 14mm nut I removed earlier will press the cranks back onto the spindle. These will slowly get tighter until the crank is fully seated, so keep going until you feel a noticeable increase in tightness.

I decided to ditch the rusty chain guard (I probably could have scraped the rust off with a wire brush or aluminum foil, but I think the bike looks better without it anyway). Time to put the bars and stem back in. It helps to put a little grease on the aluminum to keep it from seizing in place later on:

For bikes with stem shifters, slide the shifters back onto the stem and tighten the clamp down once the stem is properly positioned:

These brake levers have a screw inside that tightens them to the bars. I wanted to get rid of the dried up foam grips, so I loosened the brake lever screws and slid everything off the bars.

With the handlebars nice and clean, I repositioned the levers and tightened down the clamp screws:

Time to reinstall the brake calipers. Center the brake, then tighten down the 10mm nut that holds it on:

Reattach the cable to the levers by hooking them into the barrel. Make sure there are no frayed wires if you intend to reuse the original cables:

Now reattach the cables to the brake calipers:

Finally, adjust the saddle's position by loosening the clamp and retightening it once it's set up perfectly:

After I put the chain back on, the bike is almost finished:

The last and most important step is to test ride it. Check the shifters. Make sure the front derailluer doesn't rub the chain. Check that the rear derailleur doesn't overshoot the freewheel. Adjust the brakes so that they grab the rims strongly, but don't drag on either side.

This bike is pretty typical of most bikes from the late 70s. Earlier French bikes might have special handlebar stems, headsets, freewheels, and possibly even special pedals. Keep these in mind in case you're looking for replacement parts.