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Those are Williams AB77 cranks - the finest British cranks available in the 1960s:
http://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/components/williams_identification.html
You often see them installed on Moulton "S Speed" factory specials.
The bolt circle is the same as the TA 5vis/Stronglight 50.4mm, so you can fit the adapter and ring to TA Pro 5vis or Stronglight 49D cranks or a host of clones and copies. The ring is probably a 151mm bcd, which was the old track standard before 144mm took over.
In terms of splined crank history, Williams weren't the first: Gnutti were doing it in the fifties.
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Used to be fairly common on Italian stuff like 3ttt and old Cinelli. Even Campag C-Record cranks used a 7mm auto-extractor, with a left hand thread...
It's not all that uncommon on some brands of car too. Google and you'll find plenty.
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The axle length depends on the cranks you're using. That shouldn't change between Italian and British threading - the chainline should be the same with each.
There's no such thing as "track standard" - it varies from crank to crank.
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Basically, JIS headsets came on Japanese and Taiwanese frames. There are a few exceptions, but a 1960s British bike is going to have a BSC (ISO) headset. If you want to be sure, just tap the crown race off and measure. Go gently and you won't damage anything.
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Okay, think i might have got my hands on a cheap Dura Ace front hub but of course has a QR rather than track nuts, how hard is it to swap it to a solid Axle and will i be needing some fancy tools?
Dura Ace front hubs made in the last ten years (7700 and 7800 series) use an oversized aluminium axle. Nothing else will fit the hub, so your options are limited to using a security skewer. If the hub's older than that (7400 series) you can fit a normal 9mm x 1mm solid axle. The only tools needed are cone spanners, and it's a 15 minute job.
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On a road bike with 120 spacing the idea is to use a 6 bolt *front *MTB hub for the rear, ideal choice is a Shimano XT M756.
These are perfect - XT hubs are double sealed for offroad use, bullet proof, large flange and run on standard (but high quality) cup and cone bearings. However, best of all (apart from being silly cheap for the quality - £23 at CRC) is that they run a standard 10mm axle. Thus, any standard solid 10mm rear axle can be installed and a 10mm spacer added each side to space it to 120mm as per track frames. In addition the chainline on a cog mounted this way brings it out to about 40mm. A couple of spacer washers allows fine tuning to 42mm or whatever...
Bearings spaced out a bit you might say? Ahh, a front hubs bearing are no further apart than an MTB rear hub with 135mm spacing.
Stress on a ISO mount with the cog? Can't see it - these XT hubs are capable of 40mph + pro downhill descents on 45 lb bikes with 6 pot callipers straining on eight inch rotors - that's got to be more force than the average joe twirling the pedals at 20mph down a London side street?!
Any thoughts?I had the same idea, bought the same (XT HB-M756) hub, put in a new 10mm axle and track nuts, spaced it out to 120mm ... but time commitments mean I haven't built it into a wheel yet.
One possible drawback for this hub is that it uses smaller balls than normal for a rear hub - I forget if it's 7/32" or 3/16". Smaller than 1/4" in any case. I don't know if that will have any real impact on bearing life. The bearings are spaced further apart than a typical multi-speed freewheel hub, and there are more of them than in most front hubs.
The "bull horns" are actually porteur/roadster bars from Vélo Orange (VO). I think the model's called "Montmartre":
http://store.velo-orange.com/index.php/components/handlebars/vo-montmartre-handlebar.html