Sean,
What stack height do you need?
A large number of classic French bikes came with Stronglight P3 headsets with a 33mm+ stack height. Unfortunately the VO metric headsets have a 41mm stack height.
You can pick up a few MM by facing off the top and bottom of the head tube plus the fork crown but if your frame came with a P3, 8mm is way too much to try to make up.
I've danced this waltz many times over the past 35 years.
Here's some stack heights for some common better quality headsets that were available in metric threads (averaged up or down to reality measurements):
Stronglight
P3 33mm V4 Competition 39mm (used on PX-10s and some Motos) S5 Super Competition 41 mm D6 Alloy Super Competition 41 mm A9 & B10 Alloy 40mm (don't know if these were made in metric thread)
Campagnolo
NR/Victory/Triomphe 39mm SR Alloy 42mm NR Track/Gran Sport Road 34mm
Gippieme
41mm
Ofmega
Depending on model 39mm - 41mm
Edco
Alloy 41mm ?
Shimano
Depending on model 31mm - 40mm Some alloy models too
Specialized
Depending on model 35mm - 39mm Some alloy models too
Tange
Depending on model 31mm - 41mm Some alloy models too
Zeus
Criterium 41mm Maybe an alloy 2000 model too?
Many French crowns used 27mm crown races and a lot of metric threaded headsets had that size race.
It's easy to cut a crown down to 26.4mm but there are a lot of problems going the other way.
One fix is to reface the fork crown down about 1mm with a 27mm cutter then prick punch indentations around the 26.4mm diameter to raise up high spots. Assemble with Loctite 660 "Quick Metal" Bearing Retaining Compound which is a silver paste which will fill gaps up to .020"
The other thing that I've done is get a Tange headset and just use the fork crown race and bottom cup. They come with both 26.4mm and 27mm crown races.
You can get them cheap, (I've seen them as low as $12) and they work as least as well as the original parts. Besides they look like the real thing and only a few people outside of CR list members would notice the difference. ;-)
Hope this helps a little...
Chas. Colerich viva la France! Oakland, CA USA
Sean Flores wrote:
> Looking to buy a french threaded 1" headset, preferably stronglight and even more preferably alloy. I would love to find one that is more of a "modern" campagnolo style design vs. the older stronglight/rfg/tdc low stack steel design. Additionally, needs to have a 26.4 crown race.
>
> I recently purchased one of the Velo Orange ones for a friends bike and was a bit disappointed with the quality and the overall design of the pressed races. Had the original not been so worn/rusty, I would have left it on and just gone ahead and replaced the bearings.
>
> So with another project coming up, I'm going to pass on the VO one and try and find something a little nicer. Please contact me off list.
>
> Cheers.
>
> Sean Flores
> San Francisco, CA