Another Click Fixed-long saga



dhk2

Well-Known Member
Aug 8, 2006
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Fixed a clicking noise yesterday that's been plaguing me for most of the last month. This was a new one for me. It was occurring during moderate-load pedalling, whenever the right pedal went past the 2 o'clock position. Under hard loads, ie, standing, it disappeared. It was a pronounced click, and sounded "superficial". Didn't make the noise when I unclipped from the right.

Sounded like a loose speedplay cleat, but when I test rode with sandals, the click was still there. Checked the pedal for tightness, but it didn't budge, so figured that was good and moved on to pull the right crankarm, regrease and retorque.

Yesterday I decided it sure sounded like the right pedal. This time, I pulled the pedal, and found evidence of just slight (white al) corrosion on the seat which the flange of the speedplay ss spindle contacts. Cleaned off the light corrosion, as well as threads in the crankarm and on the spindle which were dirty), then greased the threads and contact seat on the crankarm. Bingo...gone!

Lesson-learned for me (again) is to always check joints with dissimilar metals when tracking down noises. Even a tiny bit of corrosion is powerful enough to open up a joint and cause creaking or ticking, and just checking for torque without removing the component may not be enough.
 
along those same lines and as an electrician, there is an anti corrosion lube used in wire nuts for when aluminum and copper are tied together, different metals joined dry will equal corrosion.
 
dhk2 said:
Fixed a clicking noise yesterday that's been plaguing me for most of the last month. This was a new one for me. It was occurring during moderate-load pedalling, whenever the right pedal went past the 2 o'clock position. Under hard loads, ie, standing, it disappeared. It was a pronounced click, and sounded "superficial". Didn't make the noise when I unclipped from the right.

Sounded like a loose speedplay cleat, but when I test rode with sandals, the click was still there. Checked the pedal for tightness, but it didn't budge, so figured that was good and moved on to pull the right crankarm, regrease and retorque.

Yesterday I decided it sure sounded like the right pedal. This time, I pulled the pedal, and found evidence of just slight (white al) corrosion on the seat which the flange of the speedplay ss spindle contacts. Cleaned off the light corrosion, as well as threads in the crankarm and on the spindle which were dirty), then greased the threads and contact seat on the crankarm. Bingo...gone!

Lesson-learned for me (again) is to always check joints with dissimilar metals when tracking down noises. Even a tiny bit of corrosion is powerful enough to open up a joint and cause creaking or ticking, and just checking for torque without removing the component may not be enough.

Good find. Bye yourself a beer. When I was using Speedplays, if I had a squeak, it wasn't rare for the Speedplays to be the cause. Since I had my Moots, I've been in the habit religiously using anti-sieze.
 
dhk2 said:
Yesterday I decided it sure sounded like the right pedal. This time, I pulled the pedal, and found evidence of just slight (white al) corrosion on the seat which the flange of the speedplay ss spindle contacts. Cleaned off the light corrosion, as well as threads in the crankarm and on the spindle which were dirty), then greased the threads and contact seat on the crankarm. Bingo...gone!

More times than not, pedals have been the source of errant clicking on my bikes.
 
Might be strange, but I'd never had a noise from the pedals before. In 5yrs, 24K miles with the bike, I've had creaks, clicks and ticks from plenty of other places though: crankarms, seat rails, headset, bottle cages, and a rear dropout joint (that was the toughest one to find).
 

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