I recently got a 2nd hand unicycle at a flea market its pretty old and
theres alot of problems with it. the problem i’m most concerened about
is right pedal is complety bent out of wack. First of all im wondering
if this will affect my riding second of all, how do i fix it. its so
old that pedals dont come off so i cant take of the pedal axel thingee.
if you know how to fix it your help is aprreciated
-a concerned unicyclist
it will probably throw off your balance. Personally i wouldnt trust it at all, I’d just take it off and buy a some good pedals for maybe like $20. I like BMX pedals with the grip screws in them, but the problem with those is that if u ever get them lodged in your shin it hurts alot. It all depends on what u feel confortable riding.
The right pedal has a right-hand thread. That’s anticlockwise to unscrew.
The left pedal has a left-hand thread. That’s clockwise to unscrew.
You need a long handled 15 mm spanner. A god one, not one of those cheap pressed-steel bicycle multi-spanners. Maybe your local bike shop can help, if you can’t manage it yourself.
If the pedal axle is bent, there is no cure, and you need to remove the pedals and replace them. You will not enjoy riding a uni with a bent pedal axle.
Perfectly adequate beginner’s pedals can be bought for a few pounds/dollars. About the price of a pizza.
Better pedals would make the uni easier to ride.
If it is impossible to remove the pedals, then you will have to replace the cranks and pedals. All the parts are readily available from www.unicycle.com
I bought some nice grey pedal and put one of them on my freestyle uni a bit cross threaded. I don’t know how this happened but the pedal is now completely knackered. The threads were almost smooth. Unfortunately the bit it threads into on the crank doesn’t look too good either.
I put the old pedals back on and the thread part of the pedal seem to be made of a stronger metal, I think it may have re-threaded the crank (does that make sense?). I think it may have been this pedal that damaged the crank in the first place, before I put the second pedals on because I had a bit of a problem getting it off.
I hope I haven’t broken the crank.
Cathy
PS sorry, this doesn’t help you in the slightest, does it.
Hmmmmmm.
It seems unlikely that you managed to strip the thread on both the pedal AND the crank. That would take some effort, and would qualify you as a fully fledged engineer, even if you don’t own a hammer and both sizes of screwdriver.
One possibility is that the hard steel thread on the pedal was clogged with softer metal stripped from the threaded hole in the crank. If so, the pedal may clean up.
It is pretty likely that the old pedal, with hard clean threads did manage to cut/clean a thread in the crank. It may survive, but it won’t be as good as new.
Re: HELP PEDAL PROBLEMS
Thx all but the one i had was just a solide pedal frame you cant take
them off, anyway i ended up shelling out 120$ but i figure it was worth
it its much easier to ride and it has Fine pedals.
Just experienced a similar problem with my son’s uni. Suddenly and without warning his right pedal fell off. The tread in the crank is totally stripped and the the pedal now just slipps in and out of the hole. I assumed he’d been riding it a little loose, and as the pedal is steel and the crank alloy that the movement had over time stripped the thread. However he claims there was no looseness prior to the incident at all. On closer inspection it looks like the part of the pedal that sits against the crank has ground its way into the crank itself, so it seems like, in the same way that pedals can unscrew if they are ridden backwards a lot, so this one has continued to screw itself in until it finally stripped the thread.
SO, did I tighten the pedal too much originally?
New crank about to be fitted - I don’t want to b*gger this one up!
I think this is what happened to me. I have put different pedals on now. But I had to buy new cranks.
Cathy
What often happens is the seat gets turned around and then the pedals are on the wrong sides and then the pedals unscrew as you ride and it ends up ruining the threads in the cranks. Make sure your right and left pedals are on their proper sides.