TUTORIAL: Pedal Servicing (Loose Bearing)

I'm pretty cheap about some things. Pedals for instnace. I would love a set of Shimano DX flats, but can't be bothered to splash out £50 for them. So insted I stick to my £10 wellgo flats. These are copies of the famous DMR V8 and work like a charm if you keep on top of the maintinance. Just thought i'd share with you the secret of cheap, long-lasting pedals.

COMPULSORY TOOLS
12mm Socket
15mm Socket
15mm open-ended spanner.
Small, flat screw-driver.
Replacement ball bearings
Grease (preferably water-repelant white lithium)
Tissues/old rags

PREFERABLE TOOLS
Work Bench
Bench vice
Degreaser
Pedal Spanner
Grease gun
Needle-nose pliars
Copper grease

Remove the pedal from the crank with an open-ended 15mm spanner or pedal spanner. Dont forget that the drive-side pedal has a reverse thread.

Pop the plastic cap of the outboard side of the pedal.

Place the pedal in a vice or use a spanner to hold the parallels on the in-board side of the axel.

Using a 12mm socket and ratchet handle/small breaker bar (etc) undo the outside locknut.

Using either a pair of needle-nose pliers or some screw drivers take off the washer that separates the locknuts. (This is important as it is designed not to spin and therefore to hold the inside locknut in place.)

Using a 15mm socket, undo the inner locknut/bearing cone and remove. (You should not need a handle for this - just finger pressure on the socket should be ample.)

Lift the pedal body off the axel.

Remove the plasic seal from the in-board side of the pedal body. (This will make it easier to extract and re-install bearings.)

Remove the old bearings gently with a screw driver. Measure for size and then disguard.

Using old rags and degreaser, clean the pedal body, axel and cone. Then dry it thorougherly with tissue. (The in-board bearing race is likely to be much more dirty than the out-board side.) Check the races for any piting, cracking or any damage whatsoever. If they are damaged it is likely that this is due to infrequent servicing or running the pedals too loose. The pedals will probabbly never spin to an optimal standard again.

Put the axel back in the vice.

Apply grease to the cups of the pedal body on both sides.

Install new ball bearings to the in-board side of the pedal body using the viscousity of the grease to hold them in place. Put some grease on the tops of the bearings, re-seat the in-board plasic seal and place the pedal body carefully onto the axel in the vice ensuring not to knock any bearings out of position. (My pedals took 11 5/32" bearings per race.)

Place new bearings into the out-board race and apply a small ammount of grease to the tops of these bearings. (A grease gun could be handy for this.)

Re-install the cone/inner-locknut with a 15mm socket doing it finger tight. Then UNDO the cone/inner-locknut by 1/4 to 1/8 of a turn. (Trust me, it will be too tight otherwise. You may have to play to get it right, but bear in mind that the bearings will feel a little tight and gritty to start with depending on how worn your races are.)

Re-install the washer to separate the locknuts. (It should only go on one way to prevent twisting of the locknuts.)

Re-install the outer-locknut. Do it up with a ratchet handle/small breaker bar to an ammount I would call, fairly tight. (Guess around 20Nm.)

Remove the pedal from the vice and check it for play and stiffness. If either of these symotms occur then experiment with different tightnesses of the cone/inner-locknut. If stiffness persists it is possible your races are damaged. Assess the cups and cones for piting, cracking or any damage.

Re install the plasic cap to the outboard side of the pedal body.

Apply a small ammount of grease (preferably copper-based) to the threads where the pedal interfaces with the crank (making sure these threads are clean and dry first) and re-install the pedal. Remember the reverse-thread on the drive-side (re-install by back-pedaling).


Thanks to Olly Roberts - bodge-tastic.

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WHAT I'M LISTENING TO:

Los Campesinos - Don't Tell Me To Do The Math(s)
Craig Armstrong - Rise
Sébastien Tellier - La Ritournelle
Luxembourg - What the Housewives don't Tell You
Rilo Kiley - Breakin' Up

Baby Laptop!

Finally brought my new laptop. It is tiny, but at the same time just large enough to do everything I want. I'm very chuffed - definately recomended for the £200 it cost. Mine is the 4GB blue, I wanted the green one but there was no stock and I was impatient. The linux operating system is excellent - fully compatible with windows machines for networking and you can have full desktop once you've messed around with some script. Check out youtube for some videos.

My Euro-Vision

If you haven't already heard, i'm going to be dropping off the radar for about two weeks to go and travel around Europe. First stop is Paris on Saturday and then Amsterdam on Monday followed by a gentle cruise through Germany via Köln, Nürnberg and eventually into the Czech republic to Praha. From here we will be going Down to Bertchesgaten to see Hitler's ledgendary Eagles Nest and then returning via Switzerland ... or wherever we like. I'm becoming a little apprehensive now as I have never done anything like this before, but such feelings are overwhelmed by excitement. Most of what i'm taking is books and literature on the various trains, youth hostles and attractions of the continent and I think it should be a pretty epic adventure. I just hope that I don't cock it up for Mr Ben. I've done pretty much all the planning for this venture and I hope I won't disappoint my traveling companion when we get to the experiance. All that remains is for me to go to work today, go to an interview tomorrow (yep, pretty bad planning), go to my CyTech signup (at last), pack and get drunk for the following day. See you on the other side!

Calendar

Just so you peeps can keep a track of what i'm up to - here's my calendar! Enjoy.

Wheely Satisfying

MY FIRST (GOOD) WHEEL!
Sorry, but this was the best photo I coult take with limited light and time!

This is my first wheel that i'm really happy with. It is a Mavic XM321disc rim built with 36 DT-swiss silver 2mm plain gauge spokes in a 3-cross pattern onto a Shimano Deore M525 hub. The dish is correct, the lateral allignment is bob-on the tension is good and the only flaw is about 1mm of egg in the wheel (but I think that much would vary in they tyre anyway!)

A key step in any cycle mechanics career. My boss has said to me that he's happy now for me to build wheels for customers too! Chuffed.

Many thanks to the late-great Sheldon Brown for his web-based posthumously help.

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WHAT I'M LISTENING TO:

King Prawn - Loneliest Life
Röyksopp - So Easy
Matt Costa - These Arms
Muse - Unintended
Belle and Sebastian - To Be Myself Completely

Twenty-Four Hour Holiday

I'm lazy with writing and generally quite boring so this weekends details are sumarised as follows...

Ben and Bethany had managed to blag a a free holiday in Bethany's Uncle's caravan on the Suffolk coast for the easter weekend and beyond. Liz and I had managed to blag Easter Sunday away from work. And so our mission became clear.

We departed at about 18:45 on Saturday arriving at the caravan at around 21:00 where I broke my lenten fast and drank an extremely tasty pint. We watched Anchorman and went to sleep.

The following day plans were hatched. So, we went to a place called Somerlayton Hall to have a generally plesent outing on a snowey and cold day. The place was plesent with some attractive gardens, plenty of cool trees an informative guided tour and hot-chocolate close to hand. Being easter the gift shop was laced with chocolate, some boy dressed as a rabbit and there was even some sort of troll handing out mini-eggs at then entrance (however, the others informed me that it was infact an eight-year-old girl). The maze was also quite cool, and it gave me plenty of ideas for future land projects!

After getting thorougherly wet and cold, we made a move to Southwold where I enjoyed a tasty pint of the local ale ... Adnams. From here it was time for tea and cakes, before ending our day at the seaside with a walk along the prom.

Many thanks to Ben and Bethany, not to mention Bethany's Anutie and Uncle.

Woburn Sands

Went down to Woburn for the first time today. It is OK, some of the DH's are really fun and there are some fun trails about. I was hoping for some kind of table-top jump to learn on, but insted all I found was uber-steep rythem sections.I was also surprised by the ammount of lycra-clad weekend warrior XC riders about.

In conclusion, recomended. But not for a whole weekend.