loose pedal repercussions

stabeek

Hi,

I often have trouble clipping my shoes onto the SPD pedals and the other day riding it got more vigorous as I lost my patience at times.

Now I dislike overtightening my pedals, but they were OK I reckon when I set out for a long ride. At the tail end of the ride, I felt a looseness in the left pedal and incorrectly thought it was a loose cleat and never bothered to look further until I got home.

Well, the cleat was fine, but my pedal had gradually been coming out, and no surprise to think it was ruining the threading on the crank arm. I don't want to force the pedal for fear of creating more damage.

Also I see that ruining the threading on the pedal (which will also mess up the crank arm's threading) is quite a nasty thing to do, as it might require buying a new crankset and pair of pedals. So the penny is only dropping now that it was very negligent of me not to stop the ride and investigate the looseness rather than just presupposing it was a loose cleat (which ahs happened several times to me) and continue riding.

Anyhow, anybody been through this experience before? Any advice? Thanks for reading.

Many thanks in advance.

Wishbone Ash

Are you aware that the left pedal tightens counter-clockwise (the opposite of what is normal)?

stabeek

Yes, thanks Wishbone Ash, that's a fundamental of pedal fitting and unfitting, and can say I know it well.

The situation is that the pedal was halfway out and continued being used in that state for some 6km, enough for the movement to cause damage to the threading. So now, though still half way out, the pedal fiercely resists both tightening and loosening.

8valve

workshop trick, which MAY save you spending big on replacement parts:

using a good pedal with good threads, thread the pedal carefully into the crank arm, from the inside, then remove the pedal and thread on from the outside, as normal.

In the majority of cases, unless you have reamed the material out of the hole in the crank arm that the pedal threads into, this will clean the threads enough on the crank arm to allow them to be reused.

Type 17

The pedal spindle is hardened steel, so will never be damaged by the crank arm - the worst that can happen is that its threads get filled with the remains of the alloy crank arm's threads, which then have to be removed with a hacksaw blade.

If the threads of the crank arm are badly damaged, you'll need a new arm - many bike shops have spares kept from when a whole chainset was replaced to get new chain rings (it's often cheaper doing it this way).

PS: If the crank arm is toast, but you can't get the (expensive and worth saving) pedal out of it, put the arm in a vice and use an angle grinder to carefully cut away the arm close to the pedal spindle until you can free it.

stabeek

8valve and Type 17, those are great tips, going to look into applying them .. thanks very much!

8valve

stabeek wrote: »

8valve and Type 17, those are great tips, going to look into applying them .. thanks very much!

No problem at all, you're more than welcome.

Not much use in having three decades of experience fixing bikes, if I can't give someone a dig out every now and again! ;-)