pekopeko

This crank, man. I know it's self extracting. It says "One Key Release" on the ring and on that ring there are also two really small wholes. I don't know if I'm supposed to stick something in those holes. The bolt is 6mm wide and has a hex shape. So I use my 6mm allen wrench, turn it counter clockwise, and get it lose. I think I'm done but after half a turn it gets tight and I'm like wtf? But now I know self extracting cranks are supposed to that and I'm supposed to keep turning, but it's so freakin' tight. I put on gloves to give it more torque but that just screwed up the allen wrench (i.e. it ROUNDED) so know it doesn't even fit. I tried the other side of the allen wrench but the same thing happened.

Do I need a special tool to do this? Am I supposed to do something with those holes? Does it matter that I'm doing this on the driver side first? It just gets so ridiculously tight and all the shops tell me to just keep turning but all that does is turn the allen wrench into a cylinder.

What am I supposed to do? Oh, and here are pics.

Homebrew01

Yes, it will get tight. Sounds like you're doing the right thing, but either you have a crappy tool, or the wrong size.
The 2 little holes are for installing & removing the self extractor if you ever need to for some reason.

pekopeko

Oh okay. I kinda figured these tools were crappy since I just found them on the floor. Thanks.

reptilezs

uhh get the proper tools first. you can remove the caps and put in a regular crank remover. if its really tight you can hit the center driver of the crank pull with a hammer.

operator

You shouldn't' need to hammer anything with the proper crank extractor.

desertdork

Maybe it's just my eyes, but it appears the crank bolts are slightly rounded out.

pekopeko

The pics make it look round. In person, they're a little sharper.

Jeff Wills

+1. The Shimano "One-Key Release" system was inadequate from the get-go. That those cranks are still good indicates they were installed really well to begin with or the bike wasn't ridden much.

I'd take them out and use a standard crank puller to get the cranks off. Then I'd reinstall the cranks with regular bolts and a torque wrench. If you want to keep it vintage-correct, after you've torqued the cranks, reinstall the One-Key Release and carefully torque it to 25 ft-lbs with a good hex socket on the torque wrench.

Bezalel

Remove the coller with a pin wrench and then remove the cranks with a standard crank puller.

DannoXYZ 

Considering that crankarm bolts are one of the highest-torque fasteners on a bike, there's absolutely zero chance you can generate the required torque to remove OR install them properly with itty-bitty L-shaped allen-keys. I suspect the vast majority of the loose-crankarm issues people have are due to using too small a wrench for the crankarm bolt.

Here's the proper-tool for removal; an 18" breaker-bar with allen-key socket (substitute a 6mm one for the 10mm one I have in the photo):



Then use a torque-wrench with the same socket to install.

Road Fan

And don't buy cheap Allen sockets - I've had the hex bit fall out of some cheap socket sets.

A cheap breaker bar is about as good as a Snap-on, for our purposes, unless you run an LBS and need it every single day.