Ok, well i am having a little problem finding pedals i like. I am doing trials/street/flatland stuff and lately I have been riding with plastic pedals. I really like that the plastics have alot less play than my metal snafus and they are smaller and lighter BUT they have almost no grip so when i hop up things sif then my feet just slide right off and if i step in a puddle then im done riding for a while. I really dont like using my snafus because they are really heavy and they have so much play my uni vibrates when i drop it or hop. I have tried the plastic Oddessey twisted pedals and they are nice in the beginning but the plastic pins get worn down fast then they are crappy.
So…I was thinking a perfect pedal (for me) would be a plastic one with metal pins. That way i would get the grip i need and it would be really light. So is there a way to thread metal pins into a normal plastic pedal? Would they get stripped too easily?
Ouch, maybe not nails, if you werent wearing shin guards getting smacked in the leg with a nail would be 1000x worse than with a normal pin. I guess you could grind down the end but then if you do a pedal grab or grind it would probably pop right out.
What about the metal Odyssey Jim Cielencki pedals?
You can adjust the play or slack on unsealed pedals by tightening up the bearing cones inside the pedal. Pop off the dust cap and tighten up the nut that’s in there. That tightens up the bearing cones. That is generally where the excess play comes from with unsealed pedals.
You may be able to use finishing nails (I think that’s what they’re called) with the nearly non-existant heads. You could heat up the nail with a torch and stick it into the plastic, but I don’t know how well that would work. I’d think that hammering a nail into plastic may just split the plastic. These things may work though, if you just use the top:
Maybe if you could embed some small nuts into the pedal you could screw in real pins, but that would be a lot of work.
I dont want the Jim Cielencki pedals just because they dont fit my grindplates and they dont slide as well with out them. Thats why I have Snafus now. I have tried to tighten the bearing thing in the pedals but it wont turn either way. First I tried it by hand then i tried it with a drill and it didnt move at all.
I’d just drill holes about 1/4 inch into the pedals, about 3/32" diameter, and then fill the hole with High-strength epoxy, and stick a 3/8ths inch long finishing nail into the hole and let it sit.
Try doing a complete overhaul of the pedals. Remove the pedals completely from the spindle. The nut should come undone by hand with a socket unless the threads have been completely bashed.
Take the pedal apart in a shoebox so you don’t lose any bearings or other small parts. Clean off the spindle and other parts. Put some grease on the bearing races and other surfaces that have contact. Put it all back together. That should get rid of the play, or at least make it clear where the play is coming from and you can address it from there.
Unsealed and sealed pedals do need regular maintenance. They need to be taken apart, cleaned, greased, and then put back together.
One can most definitely drill and tap plastic. The issue of stripped threads comes down to how hard the plastic is, how many threads are engaged between the pin and the pedal, and how tall the pins are… think of the pins as levers: as your feet move around on the pedals, you’ll be levering the pins around in the plastic. Keep the pins short.
I don’t believe epoxying pins into a straight drilled hole would work very well… without good metal / plastic contact (as you would achieve with threaded pins) you’d be depending on the epoxy alone to support your weight. You’d have to do a very careful job with the right epoxy for metal / plastic bonding to have success here.
If you can drill the holes such that you have much more pin threaded into the pedal than sticking out of the pedal, and you use a finely-threaded tap and pin, you could have your dream pedals and ride on them too!
1/4 deep holes with 1/8 sticking out should be fine for epoxy. Epoxy is perhaps the best Metal to plastic bond next to Poly glues (Gorilla, etc.) and better for this situation.
I’ve taken a cottered uni off 6 inch drops with the cranks glued on after the cotterpins broke, and it held up fine. The high strenth stuff (not the quick variety) is amazingly strong, and you won’t be exerting much force on it at all.
Do you know how many different types of epoxy are on the market? Hundreds! I was trying to make the point that the choice of epoxy is critical in this situation, as there won’t be much room for epoxy in this application. If one drilled a hole with the same diameter as the nail / pin / etc. then most of the epoxy applied to said pin will get squeezed out of the hole. How do you suggest the epoxy is applied in this case?
I’m no mech. engineer, but I believe one may weaken the plastic surrounding the hole by simply “jamming a screw” into the pedal. If you want the plastic to remain as strong as possible, a proper drill-and-tap exercise would be best.
I just remembered that Brian MacKenzie has a handy pedal bearing overhaul guide. The pedals in the guide are slightly different than the Snafu unsealed pedals, but same general idea. I think the Snafu pedals have one set of loose bearing on the outside and a bushing on the inside (by the crank).
Black sheetrock screws work great on plastic pedals.Drive 1"-1.25" screws into the 4 corners leaving the exposed screw head as your pin, the sharp end stays in the pedal.You can level your foot on the pedal somewhat by varying the screw heights.Course threads work best.
