My pedal wants to fall off

[jnb]

Cycling home tonight I noticed that the left pedal felt 'odd'. On investigating it the thread was hangind half out of the crank leaning at an angle and had stripped part of the thread in the crank itself. OK clearly that's wrong the question is what caused it, how do I fix it and how do I ensure it doesn't do it again.

I'm guessing that I'll have to replace the crank as I can't see how I could rethread it, so how easy is that to do or is it a bike shop job. I'm also guessing that the damage was done as I stood on the pedals to get up the last hill home, i.e. I leaned hard on the pedals when they were already some way out of the thread. But why would they have unthreaded themselves in the first place?

 

[fossyant]

New crank and pedals time really.

Easy to fit if you know how.

Can happen if pedal not tight/checked regular. Possible cross threaded at some point in past.

What's the crankset ?

 

[jnb]

New crank and pedals time really.

Easy to fit if you know how.

Can happen if pedal not tight/checked regular. Possible cross threaded at some point in past.

What's the crankset ?

Says shimano on the side other than that I'm not really sure. I've only had this thing a short while as it was what's getting me back into cycling so it's perfectly possible that it was I who crossthreaded it and then pushed hard on it while it was only partly in and crossthreaded on that part. I removed the pedal and threaded it in from the wrong side just to make sure that the thread was OK further in (not so easy when you've got a two year old on the other side trying to turn the pedals) which seemed OK so for the moment it's back in and it's got me into the office again today but I'm aware that it's got less thread than it used to have.

 

[tyred]

Happened to me on an old Raleigh. Hard to explain why as the pedals had most probably been on there since the 1970s but I tightened it up again and it has been fine since. This was on a steel chainset however so more difficult to damage than an a modern alloy one.

 

[jnb]

and where can I buy just a left crank arm everyone seems to want to charge me £50 or more for a whole crank set?

 

[tyred]

Ebay. You need to know the length (probably 170mm but not guaranteed) and the way it fits the BB spindle (square taper?). Left cranks are much of a muchness so long as the length and the fitting method is the same.

 

[fossyant]

Have a look at SJS Cycles. I managed to get a left crank, old stock, exactly the same as I already had.