Classic & Vintage - servicing a raleigh sports pedal

any tips? are they sealed? or do they come apart ? one of mine off of my 75 raleigh sports accidentaly got submerged for a little bit, i was soaking the crank in vinegar and the pedal turned sideways and fell in, i didn't find it till a couple of hours later, hopefully not to much damage, and it made getting rid of the rust on the pedal that much easier

should i even worry?

Later ones (late 60s on)are not meant to be taken apart and serviced, but you can try to fill them up with grease or oil. Older ones can be disassembled and rebuilt. You can even replace the rubber blocks.

I'd squirt some oil down the shaft while spinning it. Can't hurt.

just the middle exterior shaft?, or is there a cover somewhere? the pedal feels fine, just worried about long term problems

Replace them with some pair of the many well made, very functional
pedals that are currently available. Like the original brakes on these,
the technology has come a long way and you ought to be thankful it has.

On the ones that are easy to overhaul, there is a dust cap that you can unscrew with a wrench. There is also a model that had a press-fitted dustcap that is difficult to remove (and presumably even more difficult to put back on). I you don't see an easy way to remove the dust cap, it may not be possible. Can you post photos?

It will drip down the spindle if you sit the pedal on the end for a while. I usually oil them before I go to bed and by morning they're spinning very nicely.

im trying to keep it as original as possible,

im trying to keep it as original as possible,

Buy yourself a hand pumped grease gun and an injector nose fitting
of some kind that fits on the end of the flex hose.
http://www.alemite.com/catalog/details.aspx?identifier=accessories_guns_adapters

Remove the rubbers if you can (a lot of them you can), and rinse it
out by soaking it in kerosene or mineral spirits. Regrease as best you
can by injecting grease into the gap around the interior bearing.
A lot of it is gonna leak out around that, depending on how well you
can plug up the places where you're not actually doing the injecting.

If you're lucky, you can coax some grease down the shaft to the
exterior bearing. They're not all made to be serviceable.

Finally, clean off all the grease that's leaked out to the exterior surfaces.

Or buy some new pedals.:D

I overhauled the later-style ("not serviceable") pedals that were on my 1978 Tourist.

Drill out rivets holding it together, and the pedal comes apart into about 7 pieces plus the bearings. Re-pack with grease and reassemble; the axle/locknuts actually hold the pieces together. Take what's left of the rivets (these go all the way through the rubber blocks) to a hardware store and find a long small diameter bolt and nut to replace them. I haven't found new pedals with nice wide hard rubber blocks and reflectors like these ones, and I think they're worth overhauling if you have the time and want the bike to stay original.

The post-1972 pedals are non-rebuildable (though you can do what RaleighBikeGuy did). They're made by Union for Raleigh, and are marked as such on the inside cage, towards the pedal threads.

-Kurt