My left crank on my unicycle is making a poping noise, and i can feel it on my left foot. I felt it while riding today, and i stopped and saw that my crank was loose, so i stopped riding. I went home to tighten the crank, and i tightened it, but that didnt fix the popping noise/feeling on my left foot. It is on tight, but i still feel this weird popping on my left foot every rotation. These cranks are only a week and a half old, actually the whole unicycle has only been used for a little over a week. Does anybody know how to fix it or what is wrong?
Im no maintainence guru, infact my methods are quite rash so probably not great for advice. Are your bearings to tight tho, sorry i mean bearing housings, you may have squashed the bearings, i used to get a popping feeling at the same point on the downstroke of my right pedal and i learnt that this was from overtightening.
I just checked, that isnt the problem, i am pretty sure it is a problem with my crank. Does anybody else have an idea of how to fix it, or am i going to have to order new cranks? I wouldnt of thought that the cranks would wear out after a week.
first what kind of uni do you have? the same thing happend on my torker DX after a week and turned out that the cranks need to be tightend. what kind of cranks?mine were splined.
the coterless cranks that came with the Yuni 29", they are 150mm
I tightened the nut as far as it can go, but I still get that popping feeling. Maybe the square thread has been smoothed out in the crank, but it shouldnt have done this after a week! I am going to eventually get 125 mm cranks, but I have to use the 150s for a while, and they should not be broken after a week.
If the cranks threads are rounded (which doesnt make sense after a week), and I get new cranks, what tools do i need to bring with me on rides to make sure i dont ride with loose cranks.
but the threads might not be ruined, does anybody else know what may be wrong with the cranks?
Have you checked the pedal? I know this sounds dumb, but I’ve ran into a bad pedal when I thought it was a crank.
And in other news, when you’re not riding, try to push and pull your crank with your hands as hard as you can. Sometimes it may feel tight until you really “crank” on it.
Re: help!
That is so weird. About the same time after I got my Torker CX the left crank started doing about the same thing only no popping. It just got loose and fell off when I stopped.
Paco is right it could well be the pedal, I have also experienced crap pedals. if the crank is on tight then theres not alot else that can go wrong which would simulate the feeling your recieving from it.
Get yourself a ‘cool tool’ or similar for the trail with a crank nut sized socket, Mike Hinson told me that i should use a torque wrench to fully tighten the nuts because a ‘cool tool’ isnt powerful enough. he was surprised to find i’d cranked them up to 40 (whatever u measure it in) already…
Hmm i cant find the link to a ‘cool tool’ can youstill get them?
I switched pedals, and yes it was the pedals fault. Which is weird b/c they are basically brand new Odyssy Twisted metal pedals. I put back on the plastic ones that came with it and i didn thave any problems. The cranks still get a bit loose after a little riding though, so i am going to need a tool for the road. Anyone have a link to the “cool tool” that the above poster was talking about, or something similar/better.
its made by gerberblades - www.gerberblades.com, havent checked out this site yet. i got mine through unicycle.uk.com but i dont think its on thesite anymore, jst try a search for ‘gerber cool tool’ in your fave search engine and see what shop sites you get back from it.
Loose pedals make a popping sound. On bikes that are always pedaled forwards they tend to tighten, but on unicycles they get ridden backwards a lot and can stay loose. The sound is made by the threads clunking up and down. Put the new ones back on and crank 'em down. Should fix the problem.
The other possibility is that the pedal bearings wern’t made properly. In the good old days when everything had loose ball bearings it was an indication that there was either one too many or one too few balls in the bearings. If too many the sound is made by one ball riding up on another and slipping, if too few the sound is made by all the balls shifting up and down with the pedaling pressure.
This is very embarassing to admit, but if you put the wheelset in the frame the wrong way, or have the seat facing the (like I did last week:o ) your pedals will start to unscrew themselves suprisingly quickly, make sure it’s all facing the right way.
ill second that, i only realised beacuse my right crank was twisted quite a bit and it felt disgusting to ride with a staight right crank and twisted left. In fact on my 28 last night it took a mile to get used to undamged cranks,im used to (both now) pedlas twisting under my foot and it compensated for that movement, so i found my foor pivoting on the pedals.
how do I know which way to face the frame?, does it matter how you put the frame on the wheelset? I wouldnt think it would matter as long as the seat is facing the right way…
The unicycle came with cranks on it, i put the Left pedal on the left crank (they were both marked), and the right pedal on the right crank. I put the frame on, and I dont think it matters which way i put the frame on…(unless someone tells me it does), but i made sure that when i put the seat on the front of the seat was in the right position so that the left crank was actually on the left side. Does it matter which way the frame goes on? I have it so my Yuni sticker is on the back of the frame, not the front of the frame(like here) http://www.unicycle.com/shopping/shopexd.asp?id=601
the white sticker near the seat post is facing the front on the unicycle.com page, but the white sticker on mine is facing the back, does this matter at all?
nope it shouldt really matter, i mean i cant see how. some frames have slits in the top by the clamp which i would place at the back, but this still wouldnt make difference for which way the frame sits.