My “left pedal” has developed a new click. I use quotes because it’s not actually the pedal, that’s just where I feel and hear the click coming from. The click happens when the pedal is upward. It started only when I was going uphill, but now it happens almost all the time, and it’s getting worse.
When I get off the unicycle and try to feel for whatever is coming loose, everything is tight. I mean everything. The pedal is in tight, the crank is in tight, the bearing cap is good, none of the spokes are out of place, the seat is secure. Nothing is even remotely wobbly. But as soon as I get back on, I feel that clicking, even worse than before.
You have to put a lot of grease on the thread before you screw it into the crank.
The pedal axle is usually metal, and the crank is aluminium. The metal beeing stronger then alu, it can literally tear out the alu thread from you crank.
Happened to me several times (to my QuAx ISIS Alu 145mm cranks to be precise) and it was always portent by a clicking sound from the pedal.
So just quickly unscrew the pedals put some grease on them and put them back into the cranks.
Oh no! I will definitely try greasing up the pedal then. Hopefully I haven’t torn out so much of the crank’s threading that it’s permanently loosened though.
I re-greased the pedal and it did make the clicking go away for a bit, but it came back as soon as I started playing polo. I make some pretty intensive turns and have to free-mount and idle a lot which I do predominantly with my left foot, which is the side that clicks, so I think they may be related.
Ideas/Plausible explanations for why the grease would have made it go away temporarily?
Try tightening your bearing caps more than you think they should be tightened- go for a short ride, with the spanner. If the clicks gone, you’ll know the bearing caps were the problem- if the clicks the same, you can simply loosen then off again, having eliminated them.
This has happened to me on both my KH29 and Quax26- both times I was convinced the bearing caps were tight enough, and, wasted a lot of time messing around with other stuff (seat bolts etc), then, when I ‘over-tightened’ them, the click went and I realised it wasn’t ‘over-tightening’ them, it was actuially ‘tightening them to the right amount’
I’m assuming you’ve tightened up the crank on the axle really tight? That’s very important, and, I would’ve mentioned it before, but I misread your post and now realise you greased the pedal/crank interface?
The bolt holding the crank to the axle needs to be really tight, as in, pretty much as tight as you can get it with a normal length spanner. If that’s too loose, it’s trash both the axle and the crank.
(If you’ve got a torque wrench, there is a exact torque figure- I’ve no idea what that figure is, but it has been posted on this board, so someone will know it).
If the click persists after that, might be worth getting the crank off (you’ll need a crank extractor tool) and cleaning off the axle and crank interface- then grease them and put it back, then tighten it up agian.
I’m assuming you’ve tightened up the crank on the axle really tight? That’s very important, and, I would’ve mentioned it before, but I misread your post and now realise you greased the pedal/crank interface?
The bolt holding the crank to the axle needs to be really tight, as in, pretty much as tight as you can get it with a normal length spanner. If that’s too loose, it’ll trash both the axle and the crank.
(If you’ve got a torque wrench, there is a exact torque figure- I’ve no idea what that figure is, but it has been posted on this board, so someone will know it).
If the click persists after that, might be worth getting the crank off (you’ll need a crank extractor tool) and cleaning off the axle and crank interface- then grease them and put it back, then tighten it up again.
That may also be the case! It happened to me once with Isis Qu-Ax cranks. (The tearing off of the pedal axle happend with cotterless ones.)
But beware, don’t overtighten the bolt that holds the Isis crank together with the hub! I’ve managed to break off the head of the bolt by applying too much torque! :\
Indeed a torgue wrench is a life saver, and I guess it would be a really good investment that could possibly save you a lot of money in a long run.
