Deformed Spindle!?
OK, spoke too soon about the crank arm on my bike. It's trashed I guess, won't stop loosening up, and I malformed the square taper pretty bad. I don't know how it happened, when I put it on there I greased it up and tightened the HELL out of it, used a 1/2 socket drive and hit with a mallet a couple times to really tweak it down. Anyways, I know for a fact the crank arm is trashed, but the strange thing is that it looks like the BB spindle is deformed as well. I can clearly remember when I put the crankarm on there, it was a square. It has now rounded off considerably. I don't see how this is possible, the crankarm is aluminum and the spindle is supposed to be hardened steel? How hard is it to replace a spindle? I have the BB/Spindle still on my old bike. Are they generally used together? I ask because the BB on my old bike is a piece of trash and has deformed bearings (doesn't use casette bearings) and clicks horribly. If possible I'd just like to replace the spindle and pick up a crankarm at the LBS.