Remove stuck pedal?
 

Hello - Working on getting my 25 year old Schwinn mountain bike back on the road after 20 or so years of storage. Need to replace the stock pedals and the non drive side pedal is stuck... Drive side came off but VERY tight and could tell there was significant corrosion due to dissimilar metals. few questions:


1: Non drive pedal is reverse thread correct? clockwise to remove?


2: Plastic pedal is already broke... any reason to not use a air grinder to cut the main pedal off the stud then use a torch to heat it up and an air impact w/ impact socket to free it up... seems like the quickest option but not sure if to extreme... I have been watching lots of videos as I work on this project and have not seen any reference to air tools.


3: Thinking about Race Face Chester pedals as a replacement... any thoughts or other recommendations? Just looking to go ride with my son who is very young so it will be parks, remote dirt roads or paved side walks and nothing to extreme. They seemed to have good reviews for the price point and riding style based on some internet research but could easily be swayed... I wear a size 15 shoe so not sure if I should look for something bigger?


Thanks!!

This is correct

Peddle wrench and rubber mallet.

I had a 15mm wrench on it with a 3 pound dead blow.... no luck :(

even basically lifted myself off the ground pushing on it... felt like it was starting to round the nut off.

hit it a few times with penetrating fluid... going to let it sit for some time and see if that helps.

Ouch, looks stuck allright!

You ARE looking at the bike from the non-drive side when you say clockwise to remove, right? When I have my bike on the stand and am facing the drive side, I need to remind myself which way to go when working on the non drive side, it's confusing when you're not facing it the right way!

Perhaps penetrating oil and time -- a few days -- if you have another bike to ride in the meantime.

Put a 2x4 between the crank arm and the frame and have a friend hold it. Put long cheater-bar on the pedal wrench. I've got one about 4 feet long that usually does the trick.

Don't know what penetrating oil you used, but this stuff usually does the trick: PB B?laster Penetrant | The B'laster Corporation

Running 2 sets of raceface chesters with my size 16's, all good.

Remove crank arm, clamp in bench-mounted vise, apply pedal wrench with cheater bar to increase leverage. Ensure you are applying torque in the proper direction.

If it's galled from dissimilar metals, household ammonia will break down the aluminum oxide.

So I hear.

Bench vise. Last time this happened I disassembled the pedal down to the spindle, then just took the crank arm with stuck spindle to the LBS since I don't have a workshop with bench vise anymore. They tried a long wrench too, no luck. I think they clamped the spindle in the bench vise and used a cheater pipe on the crank arm. Whatever, it worked.

Now I'm careful to grease the threads and avoid overtightening pedals.

I had one stuck so bad, that it took stripping the pedal down to the spindle, dropping a 5/8" nut over it, and spot welding it to the spindle -
By putting a box end wrench on it, I was THEN able to break it loose.

^This, precisely. Remove the crank arm and use a bench vise.

last resort, chuck the crank arm w/ pedal attached? getting new pedals so wutz the diff. if you replace that one arm, as well?

If the pedal just won't come off, see if there is a bike co-op near you and ask them if they have any crank arms you could have or buy. Here at the Bike Exchange in sillycone valley we have boxes of them . During our recent move I sorted through all of our cranks and chainrings and threw away a couple boxes of them, took another couple boxes home with me, and still had s@@t loads of them in the shop.

how about some proprane torch heating and then cooling, might break the rust stick a bit. Ive used this in car stuff a few times and it seemed to help, I know propane isnt as hot like a proper welding torch, like they do in a car garage to help loosen rusted stuff, but it is worth the try if you have it.

Penetrating oil does absolutely nothing to free it.

This is exactly right.

If it's stuck, more force will just increase the potential for more damage. Penetrating oil will not damage anything, on the other hand, and should reduce the amount of force needed to get it to budge.

Penetrating oil does take a little time and patience. But it's worked wonders on sailboats over the years, where one tends to find a mixture of stainless steel, aluminum, galvanized steel, and bronze in every-day use, mixed in with sea salt and bird poop.

I have a Park pedal wrench that is bent from using a 4ft. cheater bar on a very stuck pedal. That pedal was rusted in place fairly well, and after penetrating oil for a few days it was still a monster to get off. Still use the Park wrench.

I use a mixture of acetone & trans fluid, squirt it and during a couple of turns squirt it again etc, really gets inside subborn threads, works almost immediately
Still tough, but makes life a bit easier

I call one of my Co Workers over and we work together on It , 1 Wrench 1 holds.


or bike on the ground, big Park Pedal wrench & my foot.

This is going to sound a bit off-the-wall but it often works. It's an old trick I learned from the owner of the first shop I worked in back in the 70's. I think he was a machinist before he started his bike shop.
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• Things you'll need: old pedal wrench that still fits tight, Kroil penetration fluid (the best for this job) , ball peen hammer, a partner or a stack of bricks
• First: turn bike on its side with stuck pedal down. Douse the pedal shaft threads with Kroil or another thread penetration fluid and let sit for an hour or so then douse it again.
• Grab onto the pedal shaft with the pedal wrench and put decent tension on the wrench and start lightly tapping the wrench (2 or more taps per second) with a ball peen hammer very near the end closest to the pedal...maybe 2 or 3 inches back from the end.
• Keep tapping and increase pressure on the wrench as you tap. Don't pressure so much that you round-off the pedal flats. Take your time. It's a LOT easier with a partner to hold the crank while doing this, or, stack bricks under the other pedal to keep the crank from rotating.
• If it doesn't budge, douse with more penetration fluid (again, Kroil is the best for this), wait and try again.

The action of tapping the wrench with a hard-faced hammer and increasing tension on the wrench acts like a pneumatic impact driver and will often break the galvanic corrosion bond.

Note: As was stated before by another poster, time is your friend. Let the penetration fluid do its job. It may even take a couple of days of repeated dousings and tapping. A good industrial hardware store or industrial supply store will have Kroil. Kroil is truly amazing stuff.


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Not all cranks can be saved. I have forced a stuck pedal to unscrew from a crank and it pulled aluminum stuck to the pedal threads through the aluminum crank ruining the crank threads. After all of that work (and it was a lot of work with a long cheater bar) to throw both parts away. If it was me, unless this is a crank to which I am spiritually connected, after a certain amount of effort, I replace the crank and save my best efforts for more worthy challenges. Good luck.

-Will

"Let the penetration fluid do its job"

What job is that exactly? Penetrating fluid does not dissolve the oxidation that is the reason the pedal is stuck in the first place. I have tried this several times with stuck pedals and stuck seat posts and Imo its just wasted. Its force and/or torque that the breaks the part part free, not the oil. Oil helps lubricate after the fact. Imo ..

Just wanted to say thanks for the tip, logical to me, will remember this one.
Cheers

It there is no other way cutting the pedal away and carefully drilling out the shaft will do the trick. Most shafts are softer in the center and this will help keep the drill centered. Obviously the larger drill bit will give you a better chance. I have cut it so close the threads came out looking like a spring.

Success - Gave it a few days for the PB Blaster to soak in and great tip disassembling the pedal + removing the crank arm! once the pedal was apart I was able to get a socket on it which had a much better bite. sorta put the rachet and the crank arm on the work bench in a triangle type fashion and was able to hammer it apart with the dead blow.


Thanks for all the tips!! I was just about to start really ripping into it.