A tough day at the workstand

After three days of soaking, heating, freezing and sheer brute force having no impact on a seized crankbolt I sadly had to get the Dremel out and thirty minutes of interpreting flying sparks as flying pound signs I finally freed the cranks and part of the axle from the frame.

One Gnutti cotterless crank and axle down now

So it had me wondering just how many of you had similarly sad but necessary tales?

Please share and ease my guilt

Stu

I once had bike -18 year old hybrid come in - for a BB change except the BB was stuck. Plus gas did not work, LGF's sbborn BB method did not work, frame in vice did not work eventually I had to heat the frame with a blow torch (Aluminium) gently and unwind the BB what felt like 1/16th of a turn at a time then warm again and turn some more. 4 hours later I had both cups out. Man that was stuck.

That reminds me of a time when I had one cup stuck in a 753 frame. I did all I could at home but no joy so off to the LBS I went with one request "No heat please". I didn't want to know what they did in the end but they got it shifted.

All's well that ends well!

One trick, if the BB is with Steel cubs, is to weld the axle to cub and then use a Steel chainset arm with a tube welded to it as a lever.

Gracie":1euw9975 said:

After three days of soaking, heating, freezing and sheer brute force having no impact on a seized crankbolt I sadly had to get the Dremel out and thirty minutes of interpreting flying sparks as flying pound signs I finally freed the cranks and part of the axle from the frame.

One Gnutti cotterless crank and axle down now

So it had me wondering just how many of you had similarly sad but necessary tales?

Please share and ease my guilt

Stu

Click to expand...

Well, it was just 3-4 weeks I had the most troublesome cranks to remember.
They had to go anyway, so when the (Park) crank puller had stripped the thread, the typical swearing came.
Was surprised to see the whole thread for the puller coming out like a sleeve, all of a sudden. Weird :roll:
Cranks and b.b. had to go, so resorted to the 2-arm big puller, to no avail.
Whaaaat??? :?
Then big wedge +hammer.
Nothing :shock:

Fine, cut the b.b. axle; removed all the old crap and installed the new parts. All ok, bike serviced, nicely working now with new drivetrain.

But wanted to remove the stub of b.b. axle from that Lh crank!
So, bearing drift (ground steel) with 20mm ID under the crank, workshop assistant holding the crank, bolt fully threaded in the stub, hit with biggest hammer.
Nothing :x

Then same system, but heating-up the crank with flame, while cooling the axle stub with the air gun (from its hole), the quickly threaded a new bolt in the stub and put the crank in the 8" vice, two blokes tightening as hard as they will go.
Nothing! :evil:

Left it there, it was just for price but... it won! :twisted:

Probably the worst for me so far was having to dissolve an aluminium Chorus BB cup frozen in a steel
frame. BB tool stripped the splines off the cup. Cutting it out didn't get me far - couldn't cut too far for
fear of destroying the threads. So resorted to dissolving with caustic soda. This worked but I then gashed
my finger open on the razor sharp leftotver piece of the cup.

a cotter pin a while back..........AAARRRGGGHHHHH. Even considered dynamite :evil: :roll:

This was just the kind of thing I needed to ease the bad feeling.

I am going to try and salvage the NDS crank tomorrow with some more drilling and praying

Johnsqual":3d6wsq64 said:

Probably the worst for me so far was having to dissolve an aluminium Chorus BB cup frozen in a steel
frame. BB tool stripped the splines off the cup. Cutting it out didn't get me far - couldn't cut too far for
fear of destroying the threads. So resorted to dissolving with caustic soda. This worked but I then gashed
my finger open on the razor sharp leftotver piece of the cup.

Click to expand...

Happened a couple of times.
Sorted by drilling the whole cup all around with 2.5mm holes, then break the spaces in between with a chisel; tapping the b.b. unit out, then cutting the remains of the cup in two points. At such stage, is easy to lift the two halves.
Of course, while cutting the remain of the cup, one has to be very careful. It helps in a steel frame, when touching the threads it feels immediately on the blade and there's no damage.

gattonero":1q0hq80d said:

Johnsqual":1q0hq80d said:

Probably the worst for me so far was having to dissolve an aluminium Chorus BB cup frozen in a steel
frame. BB tool stripped the splines off the cup. Cutting it out didn't get me far - couldn't cut too far for
fear of destroying the threads. So resorted to dissolving with caustic soda. This worked but I then gashed
my finger open on the razor sharp leftotver piece of the cup.

Click to expand...

Happened a couple of times.
Sorted by drilling the whole cup all around with 2.5mm holes, then break the spaces in between with a chisel; tapping the b.b. unit out, then cutting the remains of the cup in two points. At such stage, is easy to lift the two halves.
Of course, while cutting the remain of the cup, one has to be very careful. It helps in a steel frame, when touching the threads it feels immediately on the blade and there's no damage.

Click to expand...

Brr, those pictures bring back traumatic memories...