Originally Posted by
ThatChap
I suppose I ride the bike quite hard. I have a fairly moderate hour and a half daily commute up a few fairly long, steep hills. This must put quite a bit of pressure on the spindle. Cumulatively, I can imagine this will make it harder to separate the different metals.
I have a feeling it would be the other way around; enough force on the joint would eventually deform the aluminium, and the cranks would loosen.
Partly owing to the shallow crank threads, the (possibly) shallow lead-in threads on the tool and the slightly curved crank, it was difficult to line up the axial plane of the tool with the spindle's axis. (Wouldn't a guide shaft be great.)
Don't you know the trick to avoid cross-threading? Hold the nut/bolt/whatever against whatever you're screwing it into/onto, and unscrew until you feel the ends of the threads click past each other, taking more care to align it the larger the diameter (it usually needs to be an inch or two before you have to look).