John Thompson contributes on the interchangeability of Lyotard pedal spindles:
I don't see this documented anywhere, so I'll contribute this to our knowledge pool.
I have had a pair of Berthet pedals languishing in a dark corner for some years now because they had 1/2" spindles that were useless to me. Last weekend at the Cronometro swap I spotted a set of 9/16" x 20TPI Lyotard 45CAs for dirt cheap. The construction of both pedals is remarkably similar:
http://os2.dhs.org/
and it occurred to me that they might provide donor axles for my hitherto useless to me Berthets. Indeed, on removal the axles proved to be similar in all the important areas:
http://os2.dhs.org/
and the transplant was completely successful (the 1/2" Berthet axle is the bottom one in the picture; the donor 45CA axle is above it)!
Given that 45CAs are much more plentiful and cheap than Berthets these days (and a surprising number of NOS Berthets with 1/2" axles seem to appear on a regular basis) I thought I'd share this piece of information.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ John, either you wuz lucky or you are a whole bunch more gifted than us mere mortals. Some years ago, and it might be in the archives, I documented the enormous variety of Lyotard Berthet spindles I had in my collection. Not including the 1/2" threading. There were significant differences in length (YES!), for example, so not all were interchangeable. Newer ones had hex wrench flats; older ones didn't. And don't get any of us started on the different lengths of threading (short for steel vs long for alloy cranks) and the random variations in diameter of the threading, seemingly totally disconnected from any indication of whether it was metric/French or English threaded.
Neat design, but not real durable, either.
harvey sachs
mcLean va