Hello all,
I’ve been refurbishing pedals over the last few days and one of the sets is a pair of KKT Top Run that I really like the look of except one of the pedals has a bent cage? … I’m not sure what you call this part of the pedal to be honest. Can anything be done about this? Can I bend it back? Would that be a dumb thing to do? They work fine as far as I can tell otherwise. Oh and just for the record, these pedals came to me like this, I didn’t break it this time! Any help or insight would be much appreciated,
Thanks,
Erin

Esos1 that can be bent back with patience. I don't think the cage is held onto the body with screws, as I remember this they were swaged. My first attemp would be to use a 10 or 12" adjustable wrench to clamp on the bent part of the pedal and either another adjustable or a vise grip to grab the first adjustable wrench and twist the cage into a better position.

If you have some steel that is thick enough to put between the outer cage and the body, you can use it for a dolly, as in hammer and dolly body work type of moving that cage back to were it came from. This can also be done once you open the gap enough with the adjustable technique.

Others here might have better ideas too.

Since you started a thread on this, keep it going and show us how this goes. Keep the pictures coming.

I'm with you on these KKT pedals. They are not top line pedals but they work well and there is no sense in not putting some effort into getting them back into shape again.

VM makes good points. These , and other pedals with bodies made of stamped steel, are well known for their "joints" becoming sloppy over time/stress. An impact strong enough to bend the quill and then the force to "straighten" (AGAP) it will likely worsen the pedal's solidness. Have you tried to ride with these yet? Loose pedal parts can cause ticks and creaks, let alone the unsolid feeling under foot if it's really bad. Andy

Andy, I read this and immediately picked up the pedal to play around with it and see if anything was loose and I discovered that the middle piece in between the two races is completely loose from both sides and I can even partially remove it from both sides by playing around with it. I’m going to take it this is not ideal?



VM, I did try this but I don’t think I was very successful in my first attempt, this is the after pic not the before pic but it looks just like the before pic 😂

those are quite heavy old pedals... you'd be happier with something lighter and aluminum or composite.

straightening that steel pedal is not easy, and they tend to get loose at the cage/struts joints, as others have pointed out.
i keep ones in really good shape, but toss ones with rust and loose central tubes...
i've rarely sold any pairs, and only put them on early bikes like raleigh 3 speeds and 70s bike boom bikes.

your biggest obstacle will be straightening that outer strut... it sets the tube compression, and will need to be bent past it's "Straight" shape to be straightened, and correctly set the tube in place, under compression..... which can't really happen with the strut in the pedal assembly...

the ones pictured are in nice shape, though!

leave it alone, try straightening the outer hoop, or get lighter, better one.. your choice.

Those are built-up pedals.
Built-up pedals have a deserved reputation for fragility
KKT made better ones than others, but the design is flawed as you have found out.
Yes the vcage can be bent back (anneal it first) and the centre re-aligned and the rivetting re-done, but it will still be a bad pedal.
The worst of these are the Lyotard 136R, the axles break because they have no help from the cage when it falls apart.
Discard them and look for a similar pair (there are MANY) made with a one-piece body - KKT, MKS, SP, SR...

That kind of bending was somewhat common, from crashing. Seeing those pedals does give me a bit of nostalgia though, and that was the kind I had on my first real road bike, in 1976.

"Andy, I read this and immediately picked up the pedal to play around with it and see if anything was loose and I discovered that the middle piece in between the two races is completely loose from both sides and I can even partially remove it from both sides by playing around with it. I’m going to take it this is not ideal? " Esos1

Gee... you think so too? (Said in satire). You've reached a place of understanding that so many before you have and that drove them to get vastly more solid pedals.

Now as you look for pedals with one piece bodies you'll have the chance to find out about the cheap and poor ways some cages are secured to the, now solid, bodies. I suggest avoiding any cage with a Phillips headed screw (very common with cheap plastic bodied pedals). Have you taken a studied look at how "better" pedals have their cages attached?

Pedals is one area that I chose strength over lightweight. Having worked the LBS service counter for so long I've had the chance to see so many cheap pedals that have come apart, including a few leg scars from when they did, to want to experience that myself. Andy (who has had a Campy strada pedal's quill sharpened to a point from road rash yet the cage/body remained solid and working for thousands of miles more.)

here's a great pair of pedals, and if the cage gets bent, you can remove it for straightening too...

ebay search: MKS Esprit Caged Platform Pedals - Lightweight Alloy Body, Chromoly Spindle

and MKS also sells the ever-popular Sylvan Pedals too..

Wellgo sells a wide range of affordable pedals, just avoid their plastic ones.

Rock Bros. sell a wide range of MTB flat pedals, in both aluminum and composite. if they are more to your liking...

I can think of a couple of approaches to this:

Clamp the pedal firmly in a bench vise in its "natural" position, take something like a blunt cold chisel and a big hammer, and whack it back into shape. Or

Find a long bolt that fits through the cutout in the end of the quill and rests on the spindle end. Thread it through the quill from the outside, fit a washer and nut. Now just wind the nut out against the washer to pull the quill back into some sort of shape.

These pedals are pretty much just held together by the frame and pressure on the bearings, just be sure the endplates are straight and parallel. I think the outer end might be bent, which will need to be corrected - probably just remove the spindle, pop out the sleeve, straighten the plate, replace the sleeve (you just made it harder, oh well) and replace the spindle. If that fails, most likely at the point you can't get the sleeve to fit back in the frame, you could try removing the inside endplate at one side to make room for reassembly, but then you need to fix it firmly when it goes back on, which will require that there's still enough metal left to swage it. I would have a go, with every expectation that it would ultimately be a waste of time, but I don't charge myself by the hour.

I used to run Lyotard 460D pedals (similar construction) on all my bikes, TT, tour/commute and even my original MTB. I never had a problem except with the end caps loosening (and that one time I crashed hard, and the spindle broke a few rides later). I still have some 460D, but it's hard to justify clips and straps since I started using clipless pedals (probably 15 years after everyone else did). Maybe if I ride one of those retro events where everything has to look period-correct ...

Erin,
I will echo what Andy sez, and suggest you look for something else to rebuild. A good starting point is this set of Gipiemme that has adorned my work bench for about a year. These are complete and will need a good cleaning and repack, but they have all the hallmarks of a good pedal. Lemme Know, Smiles, MH

The cages are steel and could use a good coat of black paint, and the spindles are I think in fine shape. It appears that one has been overhauled recently and the other needs some love. But the price of admission is the cost of postage, probably ten bucks.

I would say so lol. Here are most of but not all the pedals I have right now to choose from. It’s more than I thought I had before I decided to overhaul them all … seems to be a nice mix.








I read that one thread about Lyotard spindles while researching pedals and yeahhhhh not very confident in riding any of the ones I have now. I really like the way they look though.

Grumpus I’m also used to using clipless but I don’t have enough Look pedals for all my different bikes so some of them are going to be forced to run as period correct-ish in the meantime!

MH, That’s a very generous offer! I don’t think I have any of these yet 🤔 I don’t know if I need them yet though, haven’t finished going through all my pedals, can I let you know?
Also, how do you paint the pedal cages? I have a couple of Suntour Superbe’s whose cages could use it but I didn’t even know it was possible.

maddog39 SurferRosa thanks for the suggestions, I’m pretty sure I have some MKS’s, I remember a pair of Sylvans were the first pedal I ever overhauled a few years ago. Up until a few days ago they were also the only pedal I’ve ever overhauled.

the Suntour Superbes are my fav... i've been riding them since 1983, and a pair is currently on my latest typical steed, the Sirrus gravel bike.

cut some hardwood wedges and start pounding them in. Unless you have access to a porta power

A black Sharpie works surprisingly well. It doesn't wear as well as real anodizing, but it's easy to touch up as it wears.

A much nicer aluminium one-piece pedal that looks similar (VP-365):




I bought one set, after seeing them and adjusting the bearings thought they were good eough to get three more.

the suntour superbes have removable cages,,, allen screws.. put a drip of loctite blue on the screws when re-installing them..
other black cage pedals that don't have screws can be painted by masking the alu. finish frame of the pedal...
i use "satin black" paint... it looks better than gloss.

Classic quill pedals look the part, sadly my feet conflict with the tips, so I filed mine flat (also tried some track pedals) and found I still couldn't adjust my cleats wide enough for a healthy Q-factor, hence using the wider 460D which also works reasonably with flat shoes.
For clipless I went with Crank Brothers, as they had at least as much float as other systems at the time, they were cheap, and you can easily walk in the shoes. I have some Keo-compatibles on my 1980s road bike, they look closer to road pedals of that era, but they take some getting used to - I need more time on that bike, it doesn't get much use because of the barely-walkable shoes, even with the little rubber cleat covers.

The Superbes are just that.