Vintage Peugeot with Cottered Crank: Bottom Bracket Dilemma

#communitybikekitchen #vintagePeugeot
We encountered our first challenge in the 1970's Peugeot restoration. We attempted to remove the cotter pins using a couple of methods suggested on UA-cam videos with no success. Even after one of the cotter pins was drilled out, the bottom bracket spindle was seized in the crank arms. Eventually, we cut off the spindle and removed the cup-and-cone bottom bracket. We have several options for the bottom bracket: find a new cottered crank spindle the same size, find a new square tapered spindle the same size (and buy new chainrings and crank arms), or replace the bottom bracket with a sealed bottom bracket (and buy new chainrings and crank arms). It might be difficult to find a sealed bottom bracket with right handed threads on both sides. This bike and many other vintage French and Italian bikes have bottom brackets with right handed threads on both sides.

[@lorrbopod]

If you replace it with a sealed bb won't you have to replace the chainrings and the entire drive train?