I have waited for the chance to post this for a while.

I had some low-end pedals from nashbar, aluminum with a cro-mo axle.

They were quite rough spinning so I used a bench vice and channel lock pliers to open them up. I found that the bearings were easy to remove from the axle. So I removed them, completely degreased every single part, and then I dipped the parts into 20w50 syn motor oil (just had some extra lying around...). Then I reassembled the whole thing and repeated the process on the other pedal.

I was surprised to find that they spin freely, and tend to leak a little bit of the oil once in a while. A towel cleans any leakage up real easy and they have held up for over 1000 miles and still spin like butter =)

I know this sounds stupid but I was going to throw them in the garbage before I got the bright idea above... So far, I have done the same procedure to all of my aging pedals and they are all working better than new for me.

Good luck.