I bought some pedals to upgrade from the ones that came stock on my uni. They are plastic pinned and have a nice big platform. They were also cheap. Riding with them, I noticed a tick that I could both hear and feel. I suspected crank creak, but the cranks were nice and solid, and I eventually discovered that if I put the original pedals back on, the tick went away.
Spinning and otherwise manipulating the pedal by hand revealed nothing. Felt fine.
Ok, so the pedals are junk, right? Well, I had bought some Odyssey Twisted PCs at the same time to have on hand. Still wanting plastic pins, I put those on. I’ve had no problems with that brand/model before. I noticed a similar tick. Maybe it was there all along, or maybe it developed over the course of a few weeks. I swapped the originals back in, have been riding on them since, and the tick has not recurred.
It seems pretty odd that a tick would develop with two different sets of pedals, and on the left one with both. But if it were a problem with the cranks or how I installed the pedals (causing the tick in the thread interface rather than the pedal itself), it seems odd that the problem would go away both times that I put the originals back on. Still, it is possible, I guess. The cranks are nothing special; cheap steel square tapered cranks. Niagara lists them as Torker, so I assume that’s what they are.
Do you mean the axle that runs through the middle of the pedal? Did you just remove the dust cap and squirt the WD40 in there, letting gravity pull it down, through the bearings, toward the crank end? WD40’s carrier solvent eats lube and then evaporates, leaving a gummy residue, so I might just tear both sets down and replace the original lube with bearing grease. Or maybe I’ll just do exactly as you said to verify that it works in the short term and do the grease thing later if it stops working over time. How long has it been since you did this? I assume it hasn’t failed you yet.
These are new pedals from two different manufacturers (unless Odyssey and Diamondback use the same mfr overseas), but they both use loose balls with bearing cups rather than cartridge bearings.
It’s pretty common to get new cheap pedals with bearings that click a bit at least in my experience. It would be no surprise to me if they both had the issue on the same side. If two sets have one bad pedal each there’s a 50% chance that they are on the same side.
Also in my experience the pedal threads on torker cranks are terrible, especially on the aluminum (lx model) ones that they market as better. The threads strip out and you can never get the pedals in right again. If you unscrew the left pedal and check the threads you can see how worn they are. If this is the issue you probably will just need new cranks…
The plastic body flexes, so it’s pretty much impossible to get bearing/cup tension set correctly. Someone should make a plastic pedal body that sits on a metal core where all the bearing parts are. I prefer plastic pedals, or at least my shins do, so I put up with crappy bearing performance.
Another problem is plastic pedals are sold as cheap pedals mostly, so initial setup is usually bad, also they use really crappy/cheap lube in them. I always tear em apart and rebuild them with quality lube before I use them.
If you choose the spray some type of lube in them route, at least use an actual lubricant, not wd-40. You would be better off with motor oil
