Verdict: Raleigh-specific threading.
Reaction: "I was born ready."
Man hours: 2ish
Project hours to-date: 7.5
Here's the gist of how it went down...
1. Raleigh is a very old bicycle company (118 years now, I think). Back when they started making bicycles, there really weren't standards for part-matching, etc. Also, Raleigh made all their own parts &mdash they didn't just make a frame and shop around for the component mix to put on the bike. The upshot*: they made stuff how they wanted, and everything worked together nicely. One of the particularities was: Raleigh bikes had 26 TPI (threads per inch) threading on their bottom brackets and their headsets. "Big whoop." I hear you say. Well, round about the 70's, things started getting more reg'ulurized. I don't know that there wasn't some sort of guvment innerference. Be that as it may, the "standard English threading", or "ISO" (which is different than Raleigh specific) became the standard threading, and it measured... wait.... 24 TPI. So, you can't screw normal, post-1975 parts into a "Raleigh-specific" bike. So, after weeks of anticipation, I finally had the opportunity (after removing the bottom bracket as described below) to measure the threads on the Sprite's bottom bracket and it is, in fact, Raleigh proprietary threading. There are workarounds to enable modern componetry on a Raleigh-specific bike, but I will outline those when the time comes.
* Odd word, this. Looking up now... OED says that it originated from an English term for the last shot taken in an archery match. Pretty early on it acquired its analogous meaning of 'the result or conclusion of something'. Which confirms my suspicion that archery is an unusually productive source of borrowings, as far as martial sports go.
2. The real triumph of the day was the removal of the bottom bracket retaining cup without the proper tools. In short: I used Sheldon's already jimmy-rigged method of screwing a bolt + washers through the spindle hole, and added to the mix some additional hackery. Sheldon's method: you stick a big bolt through, add some washer and a nut, tighten 'em down real good, and then you can use that friction grip to unscrew the cup. Well, after bloodying my hand again using Visegrips to no avail, I thought I'd give his method a try. The problem: I had no nuts or bolts. And... it had just crossed the magic threshold of 11pm when Fred Meyer closes. But wait... there in my top storage bin was that excrement of vintage bikes: a kickstand! I had removed it from the Sprite when I first started disassembling it. It was held on by a thick bolt. No nut though; the bolt just threaded directly into the kickstand housing. Which, incidentally, turned out perfectly as I had no second large wrench to use. I stacked up the washers, tightened the bolt and kickstand as much as I could, and gave it a go. Even with all that force, the large washers dispersed the pressure enough that they slipped and effectively hampered applying the torque to the bottom bracket cup. Final solution: super-gluing all the washers together, and then tightening the bolt even more. After letting it sit for a half hour, it finally caved. (Another factor: despite indications to the contrary by Sheldon and the LBS, the side I was working on was reverse threading.)
3. There is an imprint of a figure in robes in the middle of the spindle (close up photo). I think it's a code, and my spindle might be worth a very lot of money.
