Craig Allen
Finally riding a big boys bike
G&J highwheel bicycles like the American Champion and American Light Champion have a very unique method of attaching the cranks to the axle which the catalogs describe as a series of grooves and corresponding ridges on the crank and axle. G&J claimed they went to great expense developing machinery to perform this process. As long as these parts are not abused or misused, it is one of the most secure and ingenious methods ever invented for highwheel bicycles. It is basically a set of miniature keyways. Unfortunately, once the ridges are stripped off from abuse, there is no method to repair them other than a rebuild.
A recent project in my shop for an American Champion had a crank with stripped ridges, an axle hole that was worn and elongated with stripped threads for the bolt. For the repair I decided to grind down most of the end of the crank and build back up with weld. The outside was returned to shape and the holes recut in the milling machine and threaded. The grooves and ridges were more of a challenge and not wanting to go to great expense having broaches and dies made to do this work I came up with another and much cheaper alternative. It consisted of a 2-1/2"X .028 diameter circular jeweller's saw with a section cut off and installed on a fixture to chuck up in the mill. The crank was centered on a rotary table and the saw blade was used as a broach. Broaching .005 proved to be to heavy a cut as the teeth quickly broke off. So another section of saw blade was cut off and a more conservative .002 cut worked out fine. Each groove is about .016 deep. It
took about 2 hours of broaching.
A recent project in my shop for an American Champion had a crank with stripped ridges, an axle hole that was worn and elongated with stripped threads for the bolt. For the repair I decided to grind down most of the end of the crank and build back up with weld. The outside was returned to shape and the holes recut in the milling machine and threaded. The grooves and ridges were more of a challenge and not wanting to go to great expense having broaches and dies made to do this work I came up with another and much cheaper alternative. It consisted of a 2-1/2"X .028 diameter circular jeweller's saw with a section cut off and installed on a fixture to chuck up in the mill. The crank was centered on a rotary table and the saw blade was used as a broach. Broaching .005 proved to be to heavy a cut as the teeth quickly broke off. So another section of saw blade was cut off and a more conservative .002 cut worked out fine. Each groove is about .016 deep. It