I just happened to place my Muni in the trunk and had to hold on to the pedals and noticed quite a bit of slop in the pedals on both sides. I am kind of disappointed, because the Wellgo B-37s are only a few months old.
I am hoping that only the bearings are loose and nothing is cracked. I really am not that hard on my equipment. The biggest blows to the pedals come from falls.
Anyone have any recommendations on how to go into these pedals?
I had a pair of sealed bearing Snafus that were still solid when I replaced them, but the Wellgos are more grippy IMHO.
I would get the same problem with mine. Check the caps on the outside of the pedal with a 6mm to make sure they are tight. Mine would back out from time to time.
I do have one that it now terminally loose, no matter how tight I tighten the cap. I messsed up the bearing on it while doing some urban assault riding. They now grace the ultimate wheel that I’m borrowing from George Barnes.
I have a set of Snafus coming today. I hope I like them. They look like they have a pretty big platform like the Welgos. I agree that the Welgo B37s are grippy, but they only lasted 3 months for me and the pins get ripped out and bent over pedal grabbing. In contrast, the $15 Bulletproof Welgos have lasted more than a year with hundreds of pedal grabs. They just don’t have as nice of a platform as the B37s.
It’s easy to take those pedals apart and check out the health of the bearing. Unscrew the end cap, unscrew a nut that is holding the bearing on and the entire axle will slide out. Then you can pop the bearing out and check the bearing for looseness.
The end cap on pedals like that is prone to working itself loose as you ride. Checking the end cap regularly to make sure it is still snug will keep the pedals in good working order. Just don’t over tighten the end cap because the end cap is aluminum and you can round out the hex key hole.
If the end can continues to get loose you can try using low strength Loctite (the purple stuff). I’d be warry of using medium strength Loctite because you might end up rounding out the hex key hole trying to remove the end cap the next time.
If the bearings are in bad shape (the outer race is all loose) then you can replace the bearing. Some bike shops stock various pedal bearings, or you can order the bearings online at <http://www.bocabearings.com/>.
When you put the pedals back together just put a little grease on the fat end of the axle. The pedal actually spins on a bushing and the grease keeps it spinning well.
I went out at lunch time and did a cursory check on the end caps. Wow, they were really loose. I am amazed they hadn’t fallen off already. I just tightened them up, and that took out the slop. But it bothers me that the caps were so loose and that just tightening the end caps got rid of the slop. Seems like a bad design.
John, thanks for the steps to explore. I need to do that, to double check everything out. I was actually wondering if there was some loctite I could use. You confirmed that.
I can’t get too much torque on the end cap, because I have to
use the long part of the allen head wrench to tighten the end cap.
That leaves only the short end to use for tightening. I guess a pair of plyers attached to the short end would increase the torque and then apply sparingly. Is there a longer wrench available, shaped like an “L”?
That style of pedal where the end cap keeps the entire pedal snug is less than ideal. Lots of different pedals use that design and end up suffering from the same faults. One reason I really like my AtomLab Aircorps is because AtomLab came up with a design that does not come loose.
I should say that I’ve never tried using Loctite on the end cap of a pedal so I don’t know how well it will work. I actually use grease on the end cap threads rather than Loctite.