Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - Creaky Cranks

Here's the story, I stopped using the brake for a few commutes to see what being brakeless would be like. I'm a lardass and the was a lot of pushing and pulling on the cranks. They started creaking when I got out of the saddle. I cinched down the allen headed cap screws that hold the cranks on just a little tighter, but it's still creaking. Have I trashed my cranks?

The bike is a black soma rush, the botom bracket is a cheapy shimano, the cranks are suginos, and I'm a pisces

Loose chainring bolts?

Loose chainring bolts?

I bet it's something with the chainring bolts too.

Make sure you don't have a problem with them. I had a creaking from my cranks today and when I got home I discovered that one of the chainring bolts had broken. Both pieces were still there, but quick poke with my penis and they fell out.

No, at least I don't think so. It feels like the left side crank.

I bet it's something with the chainring bolts too.

Make sure you don't have a problem with them. I had a creaking from my cranks today and when I got home I discovered that one of the chainring bolts had broken. Both pieces were still there, but quick poke with my penis and they fell out.

You must have a very narrow penis.

Is it an old loose ball bb? They loosen?

My last creak was pedal bearings. New balls and lube..YAAA!
(Phil Woods grease is lovely.)

but quick poke with my penis and they fell out.note to self, do not handle labramatt's bike, ever.

but quick poke with my penis and they fell out.

you just have to add something stupid like this to every otherwise useful post, don't you? your avatar is fitting.

you just have to add something stupid like this to every otherwise useful post, don't you? your avatar is fitting.

Okay, so I used a hex wrench instead of my penis, but I bet there was little or no confusion when I switched the word penis wih the words hex wrench. It was a joke meant to put a smile on your face.

At least my post to this thread was useful. Your post served no purpose at all. Oh wait, you did show us that you're an as$hole.

Thanks for comparing me to my hero. Woody is brilliant.

No, at least I don't think so. It feels like the left side crank.

Why do you think it's the left crank? What does it feel like?

Like Jeff said, take a quick look at the pedals. If not, maybe the bottom bracket?

Does the sound occur when you rotate the pedal with your hand when you've got the bike upside down?

right, okay. i'm an "as$hole" and you're a sad little pervert. deal.

I'm glad there's no conusion between a hex wrench and your penis. That could prove embarrasing...

is "apparent internet hostility" some kind of april fools joke?

I can creak the crank by standing on it, as in say a track stand. If I rotate the cranks 180 degrees and stand again, another creak. This tells me it's not the chain ring bolts, I'm not moving. It isn't the pedals because it isn't happening with every revolution. Only when I'm pushing very hard, or changing the direction of my push on the cranks.

Alright kids, group hug.

right, okay. i'm an "as$hole" and you're a sad little pervert. deal.

What makes Woody or I a pervert? I don't understand. I make a dick joke and now I'm a pervert? What did Woody do to make you think that he's a pervert?

What's your problem? Why are you stirring up ***** with me? I make a mostly helpful post and I get ***** for it. Gees...

I can creak the crank by standing on it, as in say a track stand. If I rotate the cranks 180 degrees and stand again, another creak. This tells me it's not the chain ring bolts, I'm not moving. It isn't the pedals because it isn't happening with every revolution. Only when I'm pushing very hard, or changing the direction of my push on the cranks.

Sounds maybe the races are loose in the pedal, the creak is the ball scrape as the race moves.
Does the pedal jiggle at all on the spindle?
One nut tightens both races so if it's loose, you'll get the noise from both sides and at different points in the rev.
Loose ball pedals need repacking and new balls once in a while.

I can creak the crank by standing on it, as in say a track stand. If I rotate the cranks 180 degrees and stand again, another creak. This tells me it's not the chain ring bolts, I'm not moving. It isn't the pedals because it isn't happening with every revolution. Only when I'm pushing very hard, or changing the direction of my push on the cranks.

no, it could still be the chainring bolts. tighten em down. but i bet your left side crank is loose... try tightening that too. if it ain't a pedal, after that, i'm out of suggestions.

Believe it or not, the last creak I had like that in my drive train turned out to be coming from a chain that had seen too many rain days without being cleaned and lubed. Loose chainring bolts have always manifested as "ticks" or "clicks" for me...

systematically remove all bolts and components, clean, grease, and reinstall. otherwise, you'll never know!

heres my 2 cents-- remove clean and regrease pedal threads, if that doesnt solve it remove the cranks, and _lightly_ grease the spindle and reinstall the cranks. dont forget to check you crank bolt tightness after you put some miles on them after re-installing. while the cranks are off you might as well pull you BB and clean and regrease the threads. also check you chainring bolt tightness.

yeah um. I wouldn't grease spindles. I made the same suggestion in another thread pertaining to this same topic and got educated. Coincidentally, or not, two days later my (greased) drive side crank nearly fell off as I was riding. I got a lot of creaking as a warning, but it was over a course of an hour of riding, which was creepy. The proper solution to this is to get the sugino BB and spindle, which will exactly match -as opposed to clone- the taper on sugino cranks. I'm riding some cheap sealed bearing BB with sugino 75's which is supposed to clone shimano which in turn should clone sugino. Too many degrees of separation. I got the spindle from QBP, now I've just got to save for some cups.

Also, I ride a Soma Rush.

Actually, as one person mentioned, I would suggest to check the chain. Take it off, stand on the pedals and listen for the sounds.

I had installed a new sealed *** bottom bracket with a new chain, but OLD chainring, and it creacks when teeth are engaging with the chain. With fresh lube, sound quitens for a while.

"I cinched down the allen headed cap screws that hold the cranks on just a little tighter, but it's still creaking."


Try taking that cap off and tighten the crankbolt that might be hiding inside?

I would almost be willing to bet that your cranks are loose. You say you tightened the fixing bolt, but was it with a short allen key or a full sized torque wrench with a hex wrench on it? It takes a damn lot of twisting with your wrist to get the proper torque. The fact that repeats 180 degrees off says to me that you seat the crank in one off-square orientation and then spin it 180 and can push it over to the opposite off-square orientation.

Also, I have no idea where the don't-grease-your-BB-spindle thing comes from, but it's never made sense to me. It will help your cranks seat to the appropriate depth at the proper torque (versus getting "hung up" by metal-on-metal friction). Jobst Brandt covers this and other points on proper crank installation here: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/installing-cranks.html

(assuming square taper cranks)

I would check the bb, bb's tend to be a source of many mystery creaks that sound like they're coming form pedals, cranks, chain, chainring bolts, etc
remove the bb from frame, degrease bb, and bb threads in frame, then grease and reinstall.

Try taking that cap off and tighten the crankbolt that might be hiding inside?

No, it's probably a crankbolt with an integrated dustcap. They're great, if you have a hollow spindle BB it's totaly worth replacing your old 14mm bolts with 8mm allen head bolts with dust cover. No more having to take out teh dust cover, no more having to worry about having a 14mm socket that isn't going to strip the bolt head. It's pretty great.

Here it is installed:

http://www.parktool.com/images/repair_help/crank107.jpg

and here's one so you can see what it looks like out:

http://www.cleanbikes.co.uk/PARTS/Pics_Parts/-Monty_Crank_Bolt.jpg

Cool...keeps the water out too, I have found some rust inside my caps from riding in the rain and have clean them several time in the past 2 month as a result, I never had a problem stripping the 14mm bolts though.

I don't have the appropriate crank bolt socket, so I use a standard Ace socket set. The socket is tall enough that when torqueing up the bolt with it's shallow head, it's easy for it to slip off. I really have to work to keep the socket square to the head. It's much easier to have allen heads. Plus then I can just carry my multitool and have everything I need to tighten up the bolt in the field. Getting out 5 or 6 miles towards the trailhead on your 52" singlespeed mtb and feeling the left side crank start to flop all over is a good way to learn that lesson. "Hmm... do I gingerly pedal all the way home and hope I don't trash the crank or do I walk the whole way? Decisions, decisions."

When I first installed my cranks I greased the crankbolts and found that after a week a fixed/no brake riding that one side was loosening, so I tookem' out degreased the inside bb threads and bolt and used some blue loctite and torqued to spec., never loosened up again and I have disassembled it a couple times for cleaning without any problem (no seizing or anything). with all the salt that has been on the roads in New England I pretty much have to dismantle and clean my ride weekly. With this rain the salt should be gone now...thankyou mother nature.

Uh, maybe I missed you negating this possibility, but do you think that maybe it's a combination of lack of grease and a chaining that's not pefectly straight? That would explain why it would only creak, or would creak a lot more, when you're mashing (e.g., standing and pedaling).

After you have cleaned, serviced and adjusted all the components on your bike have a good look at all the mitre joints under a strong light for creasing in the paint.

The last creak I had turned out to be a crack developing between the head and down tube.

Lotsa great answers here. Went to american cyclery and they suspected many of the same things, they whisked the bike onto the stand and proceeded to tighten the chain ring bolts, they were tight except for one, the one that needed tightening actually gave the same kind of creak as it was torqued down. I thought that would be it.

It's still there

All along my left foot has been telling me left crank arm. It happens only once in a given direction, if it were the bottom bracket it would happen every rotation.

We can forget everything else drive train related because I'm can still get it with the chain removed. When I find my crank puller I'm gonna pull the arm off and reseat it.

I vote for regreasing and tightening your pedals. I often get a rather nasty creak when I'm standing hard on my left crank (although, the side doesn't really matter I don't think).

i had the simular problem with my left crank arm last fall. as soon as i would put forward or backward pressure on the left pedal it would make a tinking sound. i thought it was the pedal (actually bought new pair) but the sound was still there. i didn't know what else to do so i pulled off the crank, cleaned it (didn't grease it), then put it back on and tightened the crank bolts to the point where my hands where beat red and hurt like hell from the wrench. the tinking magicaly went away.

good luck!

similar thing happened here. them cropcircles just appeared o'ernight

I mean, I tightened up the crank and it went away. I still hear it from time to time tho, in just about the same position as danger man said. Thot it was the crank bolt stripping out...still don't know what causes this sound.

[edit: taking bike apart again this evening, updates soon]

i second bostonfixed's suggestion about the bottom bracket. the fact that the creak responds to pressure suggests shear stress between the bottom bracket shell and the cups. i had a creak like that was infuriating me, not chainring bolts, not crank bolts, not pedals. i finally disassembled the bottom bracket and it had gotten a little dry and crusty between the cups, which are alloy, and the shell, which is steel. a little wire brushing and light greasing and i can sneak up on anybody now.

Hmm... I noticed a similar creaking noise recently that seems to come from my left pedal, possibly only when I use one side of the pedal (stock Wellgo double-sided clipless). Seems like it mainly happens when applying reverse pressure. I'll have to run through these checklists tonight.

My friend had this problem and it turned out to be his BB. The cheap plastic threaded piece had cracked and was falling apart. If not that check and see if your BB threads are properly greased.

Creaking can also have something to do with the taper of a square taper crank. Depending how long/hard you have ridden your cranks and the quality of said cranks it could just be that the taper on the left arm has slighty rounded, I have done it to two left arms, one was a sugino super mighty and the other a crappy sugino. Fixed/no brakes are especially prone to this problem- thanks

I have a creaking sound now, so I just did what anyone would do: ordered sugino 75's to replace the crappy bmx cranks i'm using.

that should take care of it.

I've only had my Sugino 75s since maybe August or September of last year, so I kind of doubt the taper has rounded very much since then. But if they did somehow, I'ma be good and angry.