Originally Posted by
surreal
hi there
just got a cool old bike with a cool old shimano deore biopace crank. i found a bolt for the granny ring was missing. i took out one of the other bolts, and headed to the hardware shop to look for a replacement. couldn't find one. rode home, tried to replace the one bolt into the hole that'd been empty, and it's stripped. i really want to keep the cranks, b/c they're cool. have i any cheap way of saving this crank? helicoil kits are $40, and i've never used one; i worry that i'd eff it up. should i get a NOS crank? A set of sugino xd crank arms? or is there a cheap way to keep the oe crankset?
thanks
-rob
Darn- those are nice old cranks. I'd take off the granny ring and see if there's any threads left in the bottom of the "stripped" hole. If there are, find a longer bolt (probably from an old-style triple, where the bolt goes through all three rings) and see if it'll hold the granny ring in place without bottoming. If it does bottom, you can start shortening the bolt a couple threads at a time (a bench grinder works nicely) until the bolt holds the granny in place properly.
I've been through this- saved a old crank and got a few more years use out of it.