Pedal Won't Come Off

johnfás

Hey

I was trying to take my pedals off there to replace them with new ones, bog standard plastic ones which are cracked for new metal ones.

One of the pedals came off fine, but the other literally will not budge, I'm a fairly strong guy and I simply cannot get it to move at all, it seems ridiculous.

Has anyone any experience of anything like this, would it be that the screw has come off the thread inside it? What is the best way to deal with this, should I attempt to drill into the pedal, break it from the inside and pull it out while trying to keep the thread on the shaft in tact to take the new one?

Cheers for any advice!

Tawfee

I take it you're turning the spanner clockwise for the left pedal & anti-clockwise for the right? Could be that the pedals are welded to the cranks, this happened me before when I tried to remove pedals after a few years without greasing the threads. Ended up throwing cranks & pedals out.

stopped_clock

As Tawfee says - you need to turn both pedals towards the back of the bike when removing. The left one is reverse-threaded. (Apologies if you already knew that.)

Other than that - is the thread of the pedal plastic? You could try spraying some WD40 or similar into the thread and tapping the pedal gently with a hammer.

tomasrojo

As said above, apologies if you already know that the left pedal has a reverse thread.

If you don't, make sure, as stopped_clock says, that you turn the spanner towards the rear wheel to loosen, beginning with the butt of the spanner pointing up. That's how I remember which way to turn it, anyway.

If you did know that already and it's genuinely stuck, the bike shop might be your best bet. If the metal of the pedal shaft and the crank have fused, there maybe be very little you can do about it at home. When you put the new ones in, grease the threads first, as Tawfee says.

rottenhat

You can also increase your leverage by sliding a length of pipe or similar on the end of your pedal wrench to make it longer - sometimes that can give you enough extra force to loosen the pedal. In one shop I saw the mechanic using one of the rails from a roof rack for this purpose - the pedal shifted immediately.

blorg

Always grease the threads, christ I learned that one from bitter experience. Apart from that +1 rottenhat on the leverage, I finally got those pedals off that I had not greased installing.

aodhu

Another trick here is to put the other petal back in so that you've something else to leverage against. (i.e. stop the one you're trying to get off from moving)

(picked that one up watching them do it in the bike shop )