After only a few months of use, my MX80 Saint pedals seem to have quite alot of play in them. (I am refering to bearing play, or in other words, axle to main body play. Not the tightness to the crank).

There is nothing in the product manual about this, and I cannot beleive such a good quality product should have bearings wearing out so quickly.

Should I be replacing the ball bearings this often, or is there a way to tighten out the play?

GBR.

Take the body off and adjust the bearing pre-load on the axle.

?! Thank you goodgrief, but I need you to clarify that please. Exactly how do I do that, step by step?

GBR.

Put a 17mm spanner on the flats on the axle side of the body and turn the body clockwise until it comes off the axle.
Then you’ll see two nuts on the end of the axle, the inner one for pre-load and the outer is a locknut. Both are left-hand thread. Back off the lock nut (7mm spanner) and adjust the pre-load (10mm) so the roller bearing turns smoothly but has almost no axial play. Hold the nut in that position and tighten the locknut to it. Re-fit the body.

http://si.shimano.com/php/download.php?file=pdf/ev/EV-PD-MX80-3390A.pdf

Do love shimano and its serviceable bearings

Put a 17mm spanner on the flats on the axle side of the body and turn the body clockwise until it comes off the axle.
Then you’ll see two nuts on the end of the axle, the inner one for pre-load and the outer is a locknut. Both are left-hand thread.

Pretty much it^^

I’ve just done mine – also disappointed that they have developed enough play to start clicking after ~ 8 months / 1000k.

The (gold) nut that holds the pedal onto the axle was 20mm (needed an adjustable spanner), and one was left hand thread (There are ‘tighten’ markings on the pedal body – go the other way!).

The general procedure, torque settings, etc are in the dealer manual: Link

The adjustable bearing cone / locknut on my pedals (bought last July) were opposite ‘hand’ on opposite pedals, not the same each side as the manual states (they were handed oppositely to the big gold nut).

You don’t need to take the pedals off the bike, but I did as I took the axles completely apart and cleaned / re-greased them, but that was probably not necessary.

I found the I had to set the bearings up quite tight, almost to the point of ‘notchiness’ to eliminate play in the pedal when reassembled.

HTH 🙂

If you can regrease them at the same time do so – notchiness is corrosion.

…notchiness is corrosion.

Not in this case. I think we may be talking about different things.

If you say so!

I’ve stripped mine down but cant adjust the preload enough to stop the play, are they fubared?

Yes mine did this, shop sent them back to madison and I got a refund.

I cannot beleive such a good quality product

Yep, all the tales of bearing play and need for lots of attention do suggest a very high quality product.

Cartridge bearings for pedals every time.

One of my Saint pedals had excessive play in it, brand new, straight out of the box.
I stripped the pedal but the play couldn’t be adjusted out.
CRC replaced them but it’s not confidence inspiring, although the replacement pair have been fine so far.

As far as I can see Shimano pedals are disposable items.

I have worn out 3 pairs of XTR race pedals (massive play) in the time it’s taken to wear 12 chains to 0.75 during which time the associated chain rings and cassettes are still going strong.

Wierd. So there was still lots of play with the axle out of the body. I tried putting it back in anyway and the pedals were so tight they wouldn’t move. After a few adjustments I now have a none wobbling spinning nicely pedal. Cant make sense how the preload changes when the axle goes into the body unless its the new packed grease temporarily stopping the wobble.