mooncricket

Anyone know how to repair Crank Brothers pedals? I have a pair of stainless steel eggbeaters (2 years old) with less than 6000 miles on them. The pedal made a squeaky noise on my last ride, then just fell off the spindle (the rotating part slipped off the axle which is screwed into the crank arm). I pulled off the little rubber plug at the end of the pedal for a look. The bearings were half out and full of crud. I haven't a clue how to repair it, and the mechanic at the lbs won't touch it.

If I can't repair it, would Crank Brothers consider doing it? Anyone have experience with this manufacturer's customer service?

Up to this point, I have been pretty happy with my eggbeaters and use them for both road and mountain riding. On the other hand, this is the first pedal failure in 20 years of riding.

Thanks for your help.

orange leader

Hey, I'm new to the forum but I have also had problem with the egg beaters. I blew through 2 pairs in about 6 months when they first came out. I was a bike messenger. Bearings went on both pairs, almost completely discintegrated. I thought I was lucky that I had bought bearing "repair kits" ahead of time. All I had to do was get the old bearing pieces out and replace them with the new ones. MUCH easier said than done. to this day, I still haven't been able to get the old bearing inner sleeve off of the spindle from one pair or the outer sleeve out of the pedal body from the other. They are rusted, or cold forged, or whatever you want to call it; into their respective locations.
Luckily i had bought 3 pairs of pedals (so I didn't have to swap them from bike to bike to bike) and I still have the 3rd pair to ride, and love them. But I still haven't been able to get the old pieces out of the other pedals. When the 3rd pair goes I'm sending it all back to their maker for a possible replacement. So you might want to try a similar tactic because you probably won't be able to get your pieces out either, (although I did not have the stainless version so you might have better luck.)
Their recommended method with the instruction kit was to put an allen wrench (I forget which size) into the pedal body, and use hammer to pound out the old bearing. It will have to be big enought to not go through the bearing, but to "grab" the bearing.
But my pedal body had a recess which "hid" the piece stuck inside of it, since it wasn't a whole bearing anymore. And they didn't even have a method for removing the piece stuck to the spindle. Many bloodied knuckles from the hammer and screwdriver method have made me give up.
But I still love their ease of use, and I'd probably buy them again.

Good luck

phantomcow2

Well you have a 2 year warranty on these things so you can contact them about that and see if they will send you a rebuilt kit free of charge. If not, they cost just 15 dollars and then your all set.

luke.harrison

ive heard that crank bros are pretty good about warranty claims...
But your problem could be the nut that holds the body onto spindle just loosened up with vibration, I check mine everytime I grease em up jjust in case.

phantomcow2

yea it sounds o dd that it would give up suddenly like that. There is a bolt udner the endcap which holds it all together. YOu want to make sure thats snug tight every so often

mooncricket

Thanks, Phantomcow2 and Luke. I'll make sure to check that damn bolt more regularly.

OrangeLeader, thanks for the info. I won't even try. I have no tools anyway. I'm in the middle of a bike tour in SE Asia and can't find any bearings that fit into this thing. My bearings are all smashed up too, the casing exploded and got grounded to bits. The bolt that held it all together must have fallen out and got lost on the road when the body fell off the spindle (the rubber end cap was still on the body).

It's amazing you've still got so much patience with Crank Bros. I would have looked around for something else.

Seems like they might have used cheap bearings or the design/manufacturing of the sealing mechanism might be poor so grits got in and accelerated the wear/failure of the bearings.

I've got a second pair at home. New eggbeaters with platforms around the body (on sale $50). If those go too, I'll say bye-bye to Crank Bros for good.

I guess I took the manufacturer's marketing blurb too literally: "Maintenance Free". When you're on a bike tour, you really want simple bomb-proof stuff. I like the eggbeaters simplicity alot so I'll give them another chance.

Thanks again for your help.

DanO220

I had a great experience with Crank Bro's service department. My eggbeaters failed after about two and a half years. I was mashing my single speed up a hill when 'all of a sudden' the pedal felt wobbly. When I got home I disassembled it to find the spindle had cracked and bent. (To be fair, I had never greased the pedals, which you should do on a regular basis. I find it easier to just pull the end cap off, and take the end bolt off and pull the thing apart, rather than use the grease cap that's included with every set.)

So anyway, I looked up the phone number on the Crank Bro's website and gave them a call. Even though the pedals were out of warranty, they told me to mail them in. For $25 dollars they sent me a replacement pair - factory rebuilds, but their still going strong. They didn't even make me wait for them to inspect the failed pedal. They told me it would be easier, not to mention faster, to send them in the packaging the new pedals shipped in.

All in all, I thought they backed their product like few manufacturers are willing to do these days.

DanO

phantomcow2

I have never had problems with crankbrothers, very high quality stuff. But besides the 2 year warranty, at least the rebuilt kit is something like 15 dollars, not bad at all since you dont even need them often

markhr

my LBS reports a lot of bearing failures/excessive wear. They advise early and complete bearing replacement, i.e., as soon as there's any sign of wear/looseness. Something to do with the quality/type of bearings used.

luke.harrison

i tihnk its more do with the fact there's only 1 bearing and its fair small diameter

capsicum

Sounds like cheap as$ chinese bearings to me.
The chinese make nearly all bearings now and their steel sucks; the iron ore in china sucks (certain impurities that are hard to remove), most of the smelting and forming is still done pretty much by eye and by hand, and as long as people by it they don't care.

Well I'll give them a solid go and if they fail I'll let CB know. I got mine as a prodeal so they didn't make much off me and if they want me to recomend them to customers they had better perform right.

cbike_47909

I have five sets of the original EggBeater pedals. Soon after purchasing they started to have inboard bearing failures. This bearing was a metal sleeve which was easily pushed out. I contacted Crank Brothers with the issue and was furnished upgrade kits for all five sets. The upgrade kit consisted of: new spindles, inboard sleeve (now plastic), new outboard bearing and new lip seal for spindle. These have served be well for the past three years.
I was very pleased with Crank Brother's warranty and recommend them highly when asked about pedals.
Charlie Myer

mooncricket

Thanks cbike Charlie & DanO. Very good info to know. I will mail them in next week.