SO that detachable nut that gets threaded onto the crank arm before using the crank bit has gotten stuck in the crank arm. Used a fixin' pipe to get the arm off in the first place, which was probably bad procedure. Tried using some spray lube but no luck. Trash it?

M.

Try some Kroil or PB Blaster, time for it to soak in and a judicious application of heat to the crank arm. Not sure what a "fixin' pipe" is or what you did with it, but you shouldn't have to use much more than finger tightness to thread the nut into the crank.

I'm not clear whether you used the cheater bar to tighten the body into the crank, or to later remove the crank.

Either way, penetrating oils may or may not help because they're more effective on corroded threads than ones mechanically jammed. When threads a re jammed, the threads distort. This can also happen when great pressure is exerted when the spindle is pushed out. The best bet, if it's practical, is an impact wrench, who's jolting action does a better job on torque jammed threads than steady torque.

If you only used the cheater bar to remove the crank you have another option, which is to use a soft face or deadblow hammer to drive the remover body in toward the crank, hoping to unjam a distorted thread. But this won't help if the remover is already jammed against the bottom by being tightened with the cheater bar.

Mount the nut in a vise and then turn the crank arm off the nut....use your fixin' pipe on the crank arm to gain more leverage.

most folks who run into problems with crankarm pullers find that they pull the threads right out of the crank arm so it should not be too much of a fuss to get the puller out if you have enough leverage.

-j

I finger tightened the nut, then used a wrench - took the instructions on the back of the package a little too seriously. The "Fixin' Pipe" was used to get the crank arm off - my arms couldn't do it, even with my body weight.

I'm wondering - if I end up dicking up this crank arm, if it wouldn't be better to just get new crankset and BB with those much improved releases I've seen mentioned. Then again, it might be pearls on swine, as this is a Schwinn.

M.