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  • The square taper 'tick' sound – grease or not?
  • Malvern Rider
    Free Member

    I don’t think this has ever been settled. Dry joint? Grease or no grease when fitting cranks? I’ve got a simple bike (Nexus 3spd) I use for utility, and it takes some torque uphill fully loaded with groceries. Since fitting a new crankset (onto nearly new BB in good shape) there is that little ‘tick’ noise on the drive side, under heavy load. I don’t wish to tighten the crank any further in case end up chasing the dragon, if you catch my drift? So annoying as fitted these BB and cranks partially to get rid of the original ticking noise.

    cyclistm
    Free Member

    I use copper slip.which prob means its the wrong thing to do.

    mrblobby
    Free Member

    Read on here that if it’s meant to move then grease it, if it’s not then copper slip it.

    TurnerGuy
    Free Member

    no grease – torque it up, go for some sprints on it, torque it again, repeat until it takes no more tightening.

    julianwilson
    Free Member

    Unlikely but if its new cranks on already fitted but ok bb, it would be worth checking your chainring bolts and pedal threads too.
    Also see if the clicking changes if you pedal hard on one foot and soft on the other (clicing more on left pedal stroke than right would suggest the crank/bb spindle fitting) and stood up or sat down. I have in the past chased clicky pedalling back to the bit where the rails enter the saddle, which was cured by a couple of nights drippling chain lube into the holes.
    Oh and also rear qr or whatever fixes the back wheel on. (I have even heard people saying they traced their clicky pedalling back to bars/stem, i suppose particularly if you are hauling out of the saddle. My singlespeed does this a bit but it sounds like it comes from the stem not the bb though)

    Personally i am of the ‘no grease on square taper’ opinion, but some under the crank bolt (shimano square tapers come new with four little blobs of grease around the top of the sqare hole in the cranks but none on the actual taper part, so i surmise that their torque settings are made with this in mind. Oh that and their torque settings are not as tight as i could actually comfortably go with the leverage on my average sized torque wrench – does anyone know if it possible to ruin a set by doing them up too tight? )

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