Alright,

So I just recently purchased a near mint 1974 Favorit complete with an immaculate Camagnolo Nuovo Record group. The bike came without pedals, and in my rushed fervor to get it on the road, I tossed in the first ones I could get my hands on. What I ended up putting in were kind of like these: https://www.bikes-n-co.co.uk/images/pedalls_350.jpg ... just standard, basic road pedals.

Anyways, after about a week of riding, I felt a strange wobble in my right foot, and soon my pedal had fallen out. To my complete dismay, I saw that all of the threading inside my beautiful, one piece crank-arm (attached to a mint 54 tooth chainring) had been stripped. It's bad. I managed to wedge the pedal back in and it's still holding strong but I will be a &*%# to get out - and when I do, nothing else will be able to go back in.

So, my question is: can this be repaired? Is there a re-threading method that is preferred? Will the re-cut threads be too large to fit new pedals down the road?

I feel awful about this - a sin against bike lovers everywhere, and a total disappointment for me personally.

Any help/advice would be extremely welcome. Thanks all!

okay, take a deep breath. This can be fixed.
what you need is to find a good shop with a helicoil kit and they should be able to do the repair.
On that note if you feel comfortable you can probably do this on your own.

worst case scenario, if the crankarm is toast you can always put a new one on (they are available).

marty

You could look into using a heli-coil. Remember that pedals thread on differently. The drive side is normal threading, the non-drive side is opposite threading.

...worst case scenario, if the crankarm is toast you can always put a new one on (they are available).

Well, unfortunately this isn't the case, which is why I am so upset/worried. The crankarm and the big chain ring are attached; one shiny, beautiful piece. It is exactly like the one in the image. So, if I scrap the crankarm, I lost a perfectly functional chainring with 1000's of kms left on it. Sigh. Is a re-threading possible without the helicoil kit, or will the diameter of the newly bored hole be too big?

You can try fixing the threads with the proper die, it depends how badly you buggered them up whether or not it will work. If it's too badly damaged you'll have to drill it out and install a heli coil as suggested.

The image I see is a Campag Record crankset. The rings are not permanently attached.

^ What he said.

Helicoil. Call around to your LBS's and find the best price. I got one done for $25 a few years back. Still holding strong.

The crank arm and chainrings are two separate pieces.
campycrank..jpg

Marty

Haha - fair enough, I could remove the chainring. The bulk of my problem is clearly the threading on the crank-arm. So, perhaps I will try the Helicoil, but I sure would like to just re-thread what's there. It's essentially as if the 'teeth' of the threading are all gone. So, the diameter of the hole is as big as the deepest grooves on the threading.

Bah - why oh why! I should never have purchased those p.o.s. pedals, I had a bad feeling about it from the get-go.

Thanks for the advice so far gang. Any other tips are more than welcome.

Easy to get Campag Record crankarms, just often overpriced.

-Kurt

Haha, yeah I guess that's the bulk of my worry. Especially when I bought this bike for the campy components more than anything, and they were brand spanking new. Anyways, now I feel like I'm whining, so I'll shutup.

The Heli-coil replaces the existing threads, at the same depth/pitch as they were originally.

Marty

The problem most likely isn't the pedal, it's the installation. I would price out a replacement arm and a helicoil, go with whichever comes out as the better deal.

All good tips - still no word on whether anyone has successfully re-threaded without the use of a helicoil? Just a straight, good old-fashioned re-threading?

Yes, sometimes, but if the pedal fell out, it probably took a heck of a lot of metal with it, making recovery with just a tap pretty unlikely.

That wont work. You lost metal when the threads came out. If you re-thread the stripped hole you'll have a larger hole which no pedal will fit into. The Helicoil is putting that lost metal back in there for you.

These folks know...you've got 2 options.