Burton

I really hate design concepts that almost seem intended to create landfill. So one of my pet peeves is pedals that aren`t designed to permit greasing. Lets be clear - I`m not talking about some $15 pedal largely made of plastic that has an axle that was crooked since it was new. I`m talking about $30 and $40 pedals that are all metal construction, have a decent bearing / axle build, but have the axles swaged to prevent the locknuts from being removed to regrease the bearings.

The reason I personally find this so unfair to the consumer is that the pedals usable life is aborted because the grease in the rear bearing will dissappear long before the bearings and axle will wear. The pedal will fail from corrosion due to an inability to regrease it - nothing else.

So the best I`ve been able to come up with thats cost effective is to remove the pedal, remove the grease cap, fill the outer end with 90W oil and spin the pedal until the oil gets sucked in and then fill the outer end with grease before replacing the grease cap.

The idea is that the grease will trap the oil inside and force it to migrate to the outer bearing and provide at least a minimum of lubribation and anticorrosion protection. That IMO can let a customer get another season out of a set of pedals with a 10 minute maintenaince investment.

If anyone has any better suggestions - please let me know.

fietsbob

Nylon molded pedal and using the pedal itself as the bushing, on the axle, is as simple as you can get.

Sixty Fiver

Buy serviceable pedals.

Burton

OK - good point! Any suggestions on how a customer can tell what they`re buying without taking them apart? I`ve found myself that some $20 BMX style pedals from Kona have servicable bearings, while some $40 EVO pedals have replacable retention screws and non-servicable bearings.

I was kinda thinking that it shouldn`t really be necessary to buy a $100 pedal to get a decent quality and servicable bearings both.

rogerstg

You could Google the service instructions of most name brand pedals.

SmallieBiggs

Or you could proactively check for your customers, and sell only those ones that are servicable. You have all the power here, my friend. If you locate a $20 pedal that can be rebuilt then reccomend that instead of your wildly popular pedal rebuild service...

... do people really pay you to rebuild their pedals? I do my own, but I would think shop rates X time spent regreasing pedals > price of new pedals.

Amesja

We live in a disposable society. Skilled labor is so expensive that fixing things is not worth it when the bean-counters do cost/benefit analysis. Just landfill it and buy new. Most people really don't want rebuildable stuff and it costs a couple more cents to build it so it comes apart and takes a bit longer to put together on the assembly line rather than stamping non-removable rivets in an automatic machine.

Look at the iPhone. They built it on purpose so that you can't even replace the battery easily. That makes it into junk when the battery goes weak. Sure, it's possible to do it yourself if you are handy but it is a serious PITA and you void the warranty on the beast. Paying the Apple store to do it costs more than an "upgrade phone" costs new. They WANT you to buy a new phone -$huge profits$ for Stevie-boy.

The old phone becomes toxic electronic waste in some 3rd world country.

davidad

MKS makes a nice serviceable pedal for toe-clips and shimano mountain pedals are easy to service.

Sixty Fiver

You have to educate your customers and hope they will see the value in buying a better quality, non disposable pedal... for many it will require a shift in thinking.

FBinNY 

Being possibly the worlds laziest mechanic, I years ago bought a spare dust cap for my Campagnolo Record pedals. I drilled and tapped it, and fitted it with a zerk grease fitting. Whenever I think it's time, I switch caps, and pump grease through the pedal clearing dirt and old grease from the crank end. (the old grease on the closed end is clean so I don't need to worry about transferring it to the other bearing)

The only drawback is that grease will continue to weep from the pedal for a while, but I just wipe it up. These pedals have 10s of thousands of miles on them and have never been opened for adjustment or service of any kind.

If your pedals have threaded dust caps you can do the same, but it may be difficult with press fit caps, unless you find a way to keep them on against the pressure of the grease. It might also be possible to feed grease slower and rotate the spindle to help it flow down the spindle at lower back pressure.

BTW- all the pedals on my various bikes are set for greasing without dis-assembly in the same way, except for my commuter which has old SunTour grease guard pedals.

HillRider

A possibility is to get a pair of grease caps and install zerk fittings. Then use them to inject grease under pressure into the pedals until clean grease comes out the inboard end.

Speedplay designs their pedals to let the owner do exactly this and it works very well.

Edit: FB types faster than I do.

Sixty Fiver

Laziness takes innovation and work...

LesterOfPuppets

I've been toying with the idea of getting some of the Grease Guard Pedals even though some online reviews aren't so hot. I must admit that with my Grease Guard hubs the maintenance interval is quite a bit shorter than better sealed hubs but maintenance is 100x easier. I'm still not sure how I feel about the trade-off there.

These XC-Pros with Grease Guard are my holy grail pedals.

anastrophe

Is there a way to tell if you have, say, used pedals with no branding?

FBinNY 

The key to being lazy and getting away with it is to work smart, not hard.

Fitting a grease fitting on one dust cap probably took less time than field stripping and rebuilding one pedal, so I was ahead of the game by the time I did the second. That was 40+ years ago, and I've lost count of how many services I've saved on since.

Be it hubs, pedals, BBs or headsets, the ability to quickly flush and grease trumps the life expectancy of so called sealed bearings, especially for all weather use.

Booger1

Make them undisposable.

You could buy a 1/2 or 9/16(13-14 mm) hole saw or shell mill(whatever the nut is) and cut the swedging off.If they are aluminum/steel pedals,it will just take a second to spot face them,then you can service them whenever you want.

If they don't have a keyed washer,you'll have to locktite the nut,use a pal nut or nylock nut.

Is it worth it? might be to somebody.

Sixty Fiver

I find that servicing pedals is a pain.

I happened upon some NOS Suntour XC parts with Grease Guard fittings... the headset and bottom bracket will go in my Moulden to go with the other XC parts and should not have sold my XC pedals (cartridge bearing).

Cartridge bearings are where it's at for pedals and I did keep my Suntour Superbes... easily one of the nicest pedals ever made.

Funny that for as little time and effort it takes that more manufacturers don't add grease fittings but then, you'd sell less pedals as they'd never wear out.

Sixty Fiver

The holy grail of pedals would be these... first generation TA's with cartridge and needle bearings and a grease fitting in the dust cap.

They will only set you back a few thousand dollars.


https://www.speedplay.com/index.cfm?f...almuseum.quill

Speedplay's virtual museum is amazing and a great resource for identifying pedals and if you look at a lot of the older pedals a great number were serviceable and some even came with grease fittings.

Booger1

Here's a nice pedal,SR,if you can find some:These are SP series


Old SP 152.All aluminum,recessed reflectors,CRoMo spindle,toe kick,guides for the straps.Funny toe clip mount but regular clips work if you straighten the tab.

Sp 154

SP 154 same as 152 but with needle outer w/front mount clip.SP series pedals have swaged bearings.

SR also made SR series pedals(my favorite) with replacable needle bearings.I have 2 sets that I bought new(special order at that time) in the 70's,still going strong.
SR made some nice pedals,stems,seat posts and cranks back in the 70's-80's.

himespau 

how often should you be servicing the bearings?

Burton

If there was such a catagory anyway! FB thats the laziest, most effective, effecient and simple solution I`ve heard in a long time! Love it and thanks for sharing!

In response to a few other posts: No - I`m not getting requests to rebuild pedals - but thats not what basic lubrication entails either. And its possible to grease any pedal that hasn`t been swaged over simply by removing the spindle locknut and backing off the cones enough to get a grease fitting in. But FBs strategy even makes that unneccessary.

Yeah - some pedals are junk right otta the package and won`t turn smoothly even when new. But others are OK and lots of new bikes come with pedals that are a little different that whats sold by the same company as accessories. Its impossible to control everything. And the situation I was really thinking about was the maintenaince of 20 rental bikes for a client. There`s no reason that a general tuneup and lubrication of those should have to exclude the pedals - they`re a key rider interface.

Press-in plastic grease caps, but a grease fitting on one metal equivalent equipped with an O-ring should do the job just dandy.

LesterOfPuppets

Service intervals vary widely according to ride time and conditions. My #1 and #2 bikes really need annual repacks at the very least but they don't get it that often.

Sixty Fiver

Burton,

There are a lot of nice vintage pedals out there that would take to refitting... there are plenty of boomer era Lyotard rat trap pedals kicking around and with their steel caps they would be easy to refit and find spares for.

If they are for rentals they don't have to be exotic.

Sixty Fiver

Regular service will ensure that your pedals last... flushing and repacking the grease on an annual basis is not a bad idea and if they develop play they should be adjusted.

LesterOfPuppets

I do like the looks of those quite a bit, whadda deal on pricing! On the road side my holy grail pedals would be something like these, but with a grease fitting: (I like the reduced pedal strike I get with this design.)