Originally Posted by
MattRennick
Does anyone have any experience with Helicoil inserts or know of any shops that will re-thread a crank arm using them? A friend of mine stripped one of her crank arms at the pedal and sent it back to the manu. but I doubt they'll do anything for her (it is IRO so you never know, he's pretty good about... well... just about everything) so if it comes back I wanted to try to have it fixed.
Helicoil inserts aren't cheap if you do them yourself, but are really easy to do. I bought a kit to do the valve cover hold-down holes on my old Mercedes, which stripped with astounding ease, and it was over $100 for a package, including the necessary tap. If you just take them to a machine shop, they should be able to do it easily. However, it may prove cheaper to buy a new crank arm.