bobotech

This is slightly annoying. None of my other bikes make noises like this. This is my son's bike. It is only a 2 month old schwinn that was a warranty replacement for his old bike. A little background though, my son is a big guy 300 pounds and is a masher rather than a spinner.

So the other day he says that it is clicking. I went for a ride with him and I could hear the noise on the right side of the bike when I was alongside him. When the drive pedal is at the top of the stroke, you hear the click. Doesn't matter which gear. This is on flat surface.

I then checked the bike and the BB was loose. Tightened it up and it felt smooth and tight. he took it for another ride and the clicking is still there but not as pronounced.

I'm going to take the crank completely apart and regrease and clean all the BB bearings but could it be something else? I retorqued the crank arm bolts making sure they were tight.

vandarye

Are you sure it isn't the chain hitting the derailer only at that point in the pedal stroke? Shimano shifters have a neat little offset to counteract that. My bike has a clicky rubbing sound sometimes at the top of my pedal stroke on the drive side, to solve it just push your shifter about half the amount it normally takes to switch chain rings and the derailer will adjust. A mechanic at my LBS showed me this trick.

FBinNY 

Since your BB efforts so far made an improvement, I'd suspect that that was the cause. It doesn't have to be, but two different causes for the same click is beyond highly unlikely.

OTOH, it could be that the BB had nothing to do with it, and the improvement incidental, like you're remounting the cranks, so that opens up a slew of possibilities. Check for play in the left crank/spindle interface. Also, some cranks where the spindle is pre-attached to the right arm and develop play at the spline there. This is very hard to detect and verify so should be reserved for last. Sometimes you can detect play with a dab of brittle paint where two parts meet. When there's relative movement it'll crack the paint.

The other common source of crank click, especially for mashers, is at the pedal/crank threads. Remove both pedals, clean the faces and threads, apply fresh grease and reassemble. If you don't have pedal washers yet, adding them sometimes helps.

After that there's a world of possibilities because the crank isn't the only thing that moves synchronous with pedal rotation. The chain tension changes, so it could be rear axle deflection, and your weight shifts so it could be anywhere from the saddle to post, to frame, out to even the headtube and handlebars. It could also be between the cleat and pedal, or a loose toe clip screw.

Lastly it could be as simple as an overly long front derailleur wire end touching the crank as it goes by.

bobotech

A bit more info. This only occurs under load. If I spin the crank without it being under load, it doesn't make the noises.

I double checked all the derailleurs and clearances and shifting and that part seems fine.

I did notice that the pedals were loose. Not the mounting spindle but the actual cages were loose. These pedals have 4 self tapping screws that tap into the plastic pedal body and 2 of the outers ones on both pedals were loose. I tightened them up and tonight we will go for another ride and see if things are better.

I also unmounted both cranks and remounted them and they seem fine.

I'm suspecting the pedals at this point.

FBinNY 

This is classic for this kind of issue. In almost all cases of mysterious clicks and creaks, they cannot be duplicated on a repair stand. Of course, that's probably not true, but we never hear about the easy ones.

The easiest way to test the pedals is to swap in a pair known not to click.

bobotech

Tonight my son and I went on a ride. The click came back with a vengeance. It was loud enough for me to hear with him being a bike length away in front of me.

I also noticed that the cheap pedals are flexing under load.

Got home tonight and found a pair of MKS all metal pedals that I'm going to put on and trash the plastic cheap pedals.

The BB lock ring was loose again as was the cup. Weird. So I am going to strip the entire BB and go to the coop and source out a cartridge BB and use that in place of the existing one.

Splather

I had a similar noise the other day and thought my pride and joy was on the way out. In actual fact the crank arm was catching against the surplus cable from the front mech...

Sorry - can see that this has been discounted, didn't see the post from FBinNY. Page hadn't loaded properly and I was overzealous.

cny-bikeman

It's a new bike, you are not solving the problem (and facing some new ones) so why not take it back to the shop?

bobotech

Its a warranty replacement. It is a rather nice bike considering that it was nearly 400 dollars from an online retailer. Sure it isn't a nice Trek or Specialized but it was free to us. Honestly I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth in regards to the bike itself. I doubt it is a defective part that is causing the issue, I am thinking I missed something yesterday when I tightened the BB down and that my son is a special case being 300 pounds and a hard core masher.

Plus I would rather fix it myself and upgrade the BB in the meantime. Seems like to me most shops around here aren't any more capable than me for basic simple mechanics such as replacing/rebuilding bottom brackets. I'm not saying that they are bad, its just that replacing or rebuilding a BB is rather simple and there really isn't anything that a shop can do that I can't do at home or at the coop. I really would love to spend the money and say "here, fix!" but I can't afford that right now.

I took the BB apart and checked everything after cleaning all the parts in my parts washer (a plastic 1 quart jug that is half filled with WD40 and PB-Blaster and I dump parts into and shake around for a while and use a magnet to drag the parts out of the jug). The bearings, cups, and spindle all look flawless but I'm going to see if I can find a cartridge to replace it and keep these parts as a spare.

bobotech

Problem has been solved. I found a new 118mm cartridge BB at the coop and bought it and installed it. I also installed a set of MKS all metal pedals. Son took it for a ride and said it felt better and he heard no noise at all.

SteamingAlong

I had an SPD pedal that had an intermittent click, it only happens on TDC.