3 Piece Cranks?

Submitted by Aaron_F on Fri, 08/31/2012 - 21:18

I've seen several CCM Mustangs and other CCM built musclebikes with different names that have 3 piece cranks, while others from the same years have 1 piece cranks. What's the deal? Some of them must have been made that way, I can't understand why anyone would want to change a 1 piece into a 3 piece. I've worked on bikes before and I don't think it would be an easy swap.

6 Comments

Submitted by Old-Bikes on Sat, 09/01/2012 - 07:21.

you can't make the swap because they require a different bottom bracket.

Submitted by T-Mar on Mon, 09/03/2012 - 14:45.

I can't say that I've ever seen an OEM CCM musclebike with a 3 piece crankset. While they do use different diameter  bottom bracket shells, a swap is possible due to the availability of conversion kits from various companies. Swapping to a 3 piece, cotterless crankset with aluminum arms and chainring would result in a substantial weight reduction. Three piece cranks also come in greater variety, allowing more choices in aesthetics and greater flexibility in parameters like chainring size, crankarm length, Q factor and chainline. If you're willing to pay the price, you can even get them with maintenance free, sealed cartridge bearings. Let's face it, when it come to musclebikes, for many owners the appeal is in being able to say. "I've got a bicycle that's more trick than yours".

Submitted by ccmusclebikes on Mon, 09/03/2012 - 22:27.

3 piece cranks can be found on CCM built off-brands such as the Supercycle Wedge or Cougar and the Sears bikes such as the Panthers.

A couple of 3 piece crank Marauders have surfaced over the years, and the owners claim they were bought from the original owners and had not been modified. Whether or not they were factory built is not fully confirmed.

I also have a blue 1971  CCM Cheetah with a 3piece crank,

Unless CCM actually ran out of one piece CCM stamped cranks and had to slap them on to get them out the door.

I prefer the one piece cranks and do not consider an odd ball crank to be a reason to increase the bike's value. I know that topic was discussed on another forum.

A lot of non-CCM products used 3 piece cranks, but we don't want to talk about them here. LOL

 

Submitted by T-Mar on Tue, 09/04/2012 - 07:45.

It's curious that the 3 piece cranksets would be found on the contract built bicycles, Typically, the contract models are less expensive, yet the single piece crankset is cheaper to manufacture and install. So, you'd think it would be the other way around. Obviously, perception comes into play. The musclebike crowd perceives the one piece crankset to be the superior design, while the lightweight population has the opposite view.

i went back through my catalogue collection,  and while it is just over  50% complete for the CCM musclebike era, I couldn't find any evidence of 3 piece cranksets for this genre. Certainly, CCM had this option available to them, as their parts lists shows a conversion bottom bracket available as least as far back as 1969, possible further. It did become standard production on their early, junior (24" wheel), racing bicycles and some of the E-series, city biikes.

The single piece crankset was obviously the preferred and standard style for CCM musclebikes. CCM manufactured these cranksets in house, so any shortages would have to be due to raw material availabilty or machine breakage. The only other possibility would be that some of these models were subcontracted during the various strikes, but the only onle that I'm aware of that occurred during the musclebike era, was the 1966 strike.  

Submitted by nielsvanm on Sun, 02/10/2013 - 18:52.

While I agree that the 3 piece cottered crank are generally more expensive to manufacture, they were indeed used on 'off brand' bikes that were manufactured by CCM. They fit in the 1 piece bottom bracket shell with the appropriate adapter bottom bracket. They don't (so far as I've seen) have the CCM logo on them. Maybe CCM was buying them from Japan, etc for less that it cost them to make their 1 piece crank (and come up with a new, unbranded chainring). I don't know of the reasoning, but I do know that there are lots of bikes out there contract built by CCM with 3 piece cranks.

Submitted by Aaron_F on Fri, 02/15/2013 - 23:52.

I started this thread because I bought a green '73 Mustang and it has a three piece crank, not the one piece with a ccm sprocket. I've seen the exact crank/sprocket that's on my bike on Supercycle Cougar's and Sears branded bikes built by ccm. So far, mine is the only actual ccm i've seen with this particular sprocket style, the others have a different plain sprocket without the ccm logo. I also have a Cougar from same time period and while a lot of them had 3 piece cranks, mine has a one piece. This must have been something done at the factory, as a result of parts shortages because there are several bikes out there like this. It seems unlikely that a bunch of ccm one piece cranks got damaged and they all happened to be replaced with a 3 piece...