This could just as easily be posted in the Mechanics forum, but I thought C&V would get a kick out of it. This was my first day in the shop with an '85 ST 500 frame that had a few of the stock parts still attached, including the bottom bracket, crank arms, rings, headset, fork, and stem. I already had a difficult time with getting the siezed stem out of the fork...little did I know that the crank arms were going to be even harder.


Lest you wonder why threaded parts ought to be greased, wonder no more. Witness the carnage wrought of a 27-year-old aluminum dustcap on an aluminum crank arm:


The hex hole stripped almost right away when we tried to unscrew the cap. Nothing we did to get traction helped. So the Dremel came out to try and either snap the threads at either end or make a slot for a screwdriver.




The slot worked for the drive side of the Shimano 600 cranks. Not so for the non-drive side.





A total of seven hours of hacking, chiseling, Dremel-ing, drilling. I broke the tips off of two flat-head screwdrivers, went through five Dremel cutting wheel heads, wore down a drill bit, and we still couldn't fit a socket in there to grab the nut. If you look closely, you can see that the threads have BONDED TO EACH OTHER. Damn aluminum and its free-flowing electrons...



We came to the sad conclusion that the non-drive-side arm was a goner. Hacked and scratched from drills and Dremels and screwdrivers, we still would have had to re-tap the threads even if we were able to somehow reach the nut. So we decided to cut through the spindle (also a shame, as it was it quite nice shape), and at least save the rest of the 600 EX bottom bracket.



Just a tap of the hammer, and it was all over. The crank arm was warm to the touch for the next half hour!

So please, kids, make sure to grease your aluminum dustcaps at least once every, say, 10 years or so. Or for Pete's sake, just get plastic dustcaps that can break off if need be!