Come to take the front wheel of my Pike’s the other day and opened the lever and turned it. Moved freely at first then felt tighter and tighter then made a funny little ‘clunk’ noise – process of moving freely and then getting tighter started again, so i think it’s cross-threaded. Not sure how, but hey!

Do you reckon it’ll be expensive to fix? Anyone else had this problem?

Ta.

Mine does this but I’ve bent the spindle in the middle when I whacked the thumb screw off something. Not really a problem if I loosen the screw a little before undoing the maxle. Give that a try and see if it works.
If not I’m guessing new lowers?!

cheers i’ll give it a go, otherwise it’s a trip to the bike shop…new lowers dont sound cheap!

If it’s new lowers you need, it’ll be cheaper to pick up some second hand forks!

Eeeeek! 🙁

I’d imagine a machining shop would be able to re-tap the threads?

I very much doubt it has stripped. If the maxle seizes on the pacer in the hub it feels like this – as you unwind it the fork legs get pushed apart hence increasing resistance and then it clunks as you reach the end of the thread.

Its a possibility I have had it happen to me.

It’s very unusual to cross or strip a thread when undoing something – more when doing things up, and either misaligning the two parts or overtightening.

the thread is very wide to cross thread…..

TandemJeremy – Member

I very much doubt it has stripped. If the maxle seizes on the pacer in the hub it feels like this – as you unwind it the fork legs get pushed apart hence increasing resistance and then it clunks as you reach the end of the thread.

Its a possibility I have had it happen to me.

I’ve had this too and it’s as TJ describes. Had to give the end of the axle a little tap with a rubber mallet to free it up.

Ah right i’ll give it a go later then. Couldn’t get the skewer out at all and didn’t want to force it. Could not get wheel off so dont want to ride incase get a puncture etc and can’t change / repair it.

Can’t see how you can possibly cross thread a maxle. Was the bike upside down or standing up? When standing up mine is tight to undo even when the front wheel is off the ground. It is fine if you flip the bike over.

Tried the bike both stood up and upside down and wont move. Perhaps it’s what TJ and Retro said…

Well tried tapping it with rubber mallet and no joy, so a trip to the LBS is on the way…..

had this issue only last night on my mates bike.
taking his front wheel off to get the bike in the back of my van, stiff to turn, fork legs spreading, then small clunk as if dropping off the end of the thread.
slight tap on the end of the maxle and hey presto, all is well and the maxle slid out.
he reckoned it was down to not having taken the wheel off for a couple of months. lucky bleeder obviously hasn’t had a front puncture for a while!

anotherstan – did you tap the end of the Maxle whilst you were trying to unwind it? or whilst it was not under tension? I am having exactly the same symptoms as you describe.

As stan suggests there could be some sort of bond between the hub bearings and the axle.try taking the internal gubbins out of the axle and spray some wd40 or plus gas as far inside as you can then maybe with the bike on its side then after a while retighten the maxle and try to remove it again.

The LBS fixed it, just by whacking it dead hard with a rubber mallet. Harder than I dared too, but the chap said it’s quite common. Anyway all fixed, thanks to NWMTB in Cheadle and didn’t charge me a penny! Top work guys.