I apparently forgot to grease one of the threads on my cranks (drive side) and the pedal appears to have corroded in. Lots of heaving on allen keys / sockets last night didn’t achieve anything other than the partial rounding of the bolt (it’s not go spanner flats on it).

I can get a new spindle for the peadals (superstar Nanos) so i’m not too bothered about those, but the cranks are quite new (SLX). My plan of attack is:

– Get some penetrating oil spray and leave on for an hour or so.
– Get a dremel and machine some spanner flats on and hit spanner with a hammer.

Any clever or more subtle approaches i’m missing?

you are turning the pedal in the right direction, aren’t you?

Take the front wheel off, lowers the BB ( obviously), then you can stand on the allen key or spanner. Always works for me – and wear a shoe!

you are turning the pedal in the right direction, aren’t you?

Do you mean the left? 🙂

OP – Pedals unscrew towards the rear of the bike, but hopefully you knew that already.

The only time I couldn’t get a pedal off, I took it to the LBS and they made it look easy with a proper pedal spanner, but that’s not going to help you. As you say, oil and heat might help just enough, and a long allen key might give you some extra leverage.

If you have a friendly lbs they will have a pedal spanner which is about three feet long and will loosen in in one easy go

I have long spanners and extension bars. Unfortunately this pedal doesn’t have spanner flats.

I hope i’m undoing it correctly! Anticlockwise as you look at the crank from the side for the drive side right?

Tried some heat in the form of a kettle last night.

I had the same problem, just bought the bike, and they’d put cheap platforms on, I could not budge this pedal took it bak and they “loosened it off” with a spanner stuck in the end of 5 feet of scaffolding pole. Gits.

Plus Gas
And a long metal pipe over the tool handle to get as much leverage as you can. If no joy take it to your local bike shop, they’ll have a super long spanner and vice.

My best method, not failed yet:

-Place drive side crank at three o’clock. (i.e. facing forward)
-Place pedal spanner on crank, also facing at three o’clock
-Place foot on pedal, hold spanner in hand
-Push down with foot whilst lifting up on spanner
et voila.

EDIT: You should be able to do this with an allen key too? Also, spray some GT85 into the threads from both sides, it can help.

Plus gas, or take the crank off and take it to a local friendly engineer, they normally love a challenge.
Good luck

Get the hex key frimly in place and then start tapping the end gently with a hammer, be patient & keep going until it moves – it’s worked for MrsP after I’d spent an age (and lost blood) trying to shift a BB.

Hmm, had this with a stuck M540 SPD pedal. Ended up stripping the pedal so only the axle remained, used a bench grinding wheel to grind two flats on the axle then put axle in a vice and unscrewed the crank arm off the pedal.
I’d **** the allen fitting so had nothing else I could use to unscrew the axle.

the easiest way, if you have a vice that is

take the crank off and secure it in the vice so the pedal points upwards,
then use the pedal spanner on it, easy peasy
much easier as the crank can’t move,

put a rag around the crank arm to protect it from clamp marks

Try pouring boiling water over it then trying whilst it’s all still hot. Worked for me with a stuck crank arm 🙂

Once you’ve exhausted all of the above, the last resort is to get the drill out and start drilling the hex hole, increasing the size of the drill bit gradually. The spindle should disintegrate sufficiently before you get too close to the crank arm threads.

You need a good quality spanner, as its only biting across two flats a cheap one will round out.

A hex socket in a breaker bar will give far more leverage than the standard Allen key and is less likely to twist as it will be shorter than the short end of the L of a standard Allen key. Again it needs to be a good quality socket, cheapos will snap or round out.

pixelmix – Member

Once you’ve exhausted all of the above, the last resort is to get the drill out and start drilling the hex hole, increasing the size of the drill bit gradually. The spindle should disintegrate sufficiently before you get too close to the crank arm threads.
You’ll struggle to drill it as the axles tend to be hardened steel….