at work today, rather than actually working. It will be a long afternoon catching up on real work.

I have a Stronglight 93 crankset with 23.35mm threading for dustcaps, so a standard crank pulling tool doesn't work.

JA Stein has a proper tool, available from VeloOrange for $55.


But I'm too cheap to buy one. Instead, I had a single chromed steel dustcap for the cranks, so I thought I might be able to make my own.

First, I drilled out three holes - one for a 10-32 rivnut and two for a pin wrench to install and hold the dustcap during extraction:


Then I countersunk the center hole and notched a keyhole to keep the rivnut from rotating in the dustcap. I also found a couple of washers to get the correct total thickness for the rivnut:


After swaging the Rivnut in place. I also chased the threads on the rivnet, which is why the walls are a bit scrapped up (held it with pliers):


To drive the crank off of the BB spindle, I found a socket-head screw, and added a pair of nuts with a lock washer. Those nuts are 3/8" wide, but seem to accept a 10mm wrench without slipping.


However, the socket head looked too small - I was worried it would go into the BB axle rather than sit on the surface. The simple solution would be to replace the screw with a hex head, but since I didn't have one handy I tried something else:


With the screw withdrawn as far as possible, the plastic cover sits about 1/8" proud of the dustcap thanks to the unthreaded shaft of the screw. Perhaps too far? I'll see what happens this weekend if I have time. I'll definitely scare up a proper hex head screw just in case.



Anyone ever try something similar? Did it work?

Cheers!