jacksbike

Hi all,
A friend of mine just called me with a problem. He has an older Condor bike with a Campy crankset and a right hand pedal severly stuck in the crank arm. He cannot budge it with a Park pedal wrench. Should he soak the pedal threads with some kind of degreaser,etc ? He is thinking of applying heat, but if so should he direct the flame to the steel pedal shaft ? I would hate to see him apply heat to the Campy crank arm. This one looks really bad, so I would appreciate any and all suggestions. Thanks.

Bianchigirll 

Hello he should certainly use a penatrating oil first. I forget what the big brand is these guys like. at the risk of insulting your friend he/she is turning the correct direction yes?

wrk101

Try PB Blaster. If that does not work, take it to a bike shop. They may do for free, or for a small nominal charge.

nlerner

If I had that issue, I'd pull the crankset, secure the sides of the arm itself in a vise w/ hardwood blocks to make sure it doesn't get damaged, apply penetrating oil of choice, and then I'd have lots of leverage to loosen that pedal (an 8" 15mm wrench with a decent length of steel pipe around it works well for leverage purposes).

Neal

Tigerprawn

+1 about the leverage. I had the same problem on the PSN10 I just recently bought. I ended up taking it to the LBS because I didn't want to try the heat method of the Campy cranks. Turns out I just needed more leverage.

USAZorro

A couple blows to the wrench with a hammer might get it unstuck. I work through applying penetrant (liquid wrench - because there's still some left in a 25 year old spray can) before I start looking for cheater bars and hammers though.

prettyshady

Time helps let the oil get in. Putting the chain on the big ring might save some pain if you slip.

OLDYELLR

Heating should expand the aluminum crank more than the steel spindle.

jacksbike

Thanks to everyone. Penetrating oil and lots of leverage should, I hope , do the trick. With the last post, I was wondering what would expand first, the aluminum crank arm or the pedal spindle. Would it be because the aluminum crank arm is softer than the steel spindle that it would then expand faster ?

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

if you were going to heat it you'd heat the crank, but penetrating oil left to soak-in overnight and a wrench with a nice long extension is a better route. I slide an old set of MTB handlebars over the end of the wrench to give more leverage.

Homebrew01

Always good to ask. The right hand pedal has "normal" right hand threading (counter-clockwise to loosen), the left pedal has left hand threading (clockwise to loosen).

Allan Pollock

yep, remove the crank arm , secure crank arm to something (I often just use the floor) use a long lever on your pedal wrench or smack it with a heavy mallet. It'll break free. Just watch your knuckles around those chainring teeth...those buggers bite!

Allan

USAZorro

Opposite direction than how the wheel turns when the bike is being ridden seems easier to remember for me.

OLDYELLR

This might seem "wrong" at first glance, because you'd expect the pedals to unscrew if the bearings seized. However, that doesn't happen. It's actually the "rolling" of the pedal spindle thread inside the crank that will cause the pedal to unscrew if the RH pedal had a LH thread and vice versa.

John E

A friend of mine proved the possibly counter-intuitive epicyclic action of the pedal bearings when he made his own crossover drive tandem crankset out of three conventional Sugino sets. He put two right side cranks on the left side of the bike and a left crank on the captain's right side and screwed in pedals with appropriately swapped spindles. The two RH threads on the left and the LH thread on the right surprisingly rapidly worked their way loose -- only the stoker's correctly/normally RH threaded drive side pedal held.

I am having trouble extracting a usable pedal from a cheapo aluminum crank which separated from its steel chainrings. Fortunately, I have the easy option of cutting into the crank near the pedal eye, since it is toast, anyway.

Panthers007

Turning the pedal towards the front wheel tightens them. And towards the back wheel loosens them. This works regardless of whether the bicycle is upside-down or right-side up.

efahl

The thermal coefficient of expansion is higher for aluminum than for iron. If you took a bar of each material cut to the same length at room temperature, put them in the oven and "baked" them, the aluminum bar would be measurably longer than the iron one at the higher temperature.

jacksbike

OK, everyone. My friend and I both worked for bike shops, so we know our way around pedals and cranks. I am waiting for him to brind the beast over tonight. He informed me yesteday that , not only has he rounded out the flat sections on the pedal spindle , but he also tried to remove the pedal from the inside of the crank. The end of the spindle has an allen opening, which he informed me that the twisted the allen wrench into a pretzel. So, at this point, besides heating up the crank arm, I am getting close to the end of my bag of tricks. It is an older Dura-Ace crankset, so we are not talking cheap stuff. I do believe in penetrating oil and lots of leverage, though. Thanks to everyone, and I will let you know how the surgical procedure works out.

OLDYELLR

Disassemble the pedal and clamp the spindle in a big bench vise.

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

sounds like maybe its time for a drill press...if you're careful you won't wreck the threads.

tbrtbx

what pedal is it? if it's SPD and the allen bit is rounded, angle grind it off at the axle, then use a hand file to file two flats, in order to get proper purchase later when you put it in a vice.

also, do leave it in penetrating oil for a day, this really helps.

Reynolds 

You could grind new flats on the spindle too, but there is a possibility that whoever put the pedal there last time didn't use grease and the threads are seized. In that case the pedal will come off but the arm threads would be ruined.

tbrtbx

is the structural integrity of the alu crank compromised when it's heated with a blowtorch for 10mins?

cudak888 

In one particular worse-case scenario, I removed the pedal from it's spindle, fit the flats (which had to be extended/ground down) into my vise, and yanked as hard as possible. It looks barbaric - and, granted, it is - but it worked when nothing else did:





-Kurt

tbrtbx

ha. i did the same thing yesterday.