Help! I've broken my bike the week before a solo 24!!!

scholarsgate

Went out riding yesterday, heard this annoying creak when I was pedalling. Thought I'd strip the drivetrain down and give it a good service when I got back. Driveside off ok. Non driveside stripped the allen out of the self extracting crank bolt and now it'll not go in or out.

Any suggestions on how to get it out or I have I shot myself in the foot?

toasty

You have a few ways to go:

A) hack a big groove into it and use a screwdriver
drill the center out, this will release the pressure and it'll become loose
C) leave it as it is, replace the other side and survive with the creak for a week?

If you do drill it out the worse that would happen is you screw the threads in the bottom bracket, they're cheap to replace anyway. I'd personally take it into a local bike shop, I'm always amazed with some of the recoveries trained mechanics pull off

scholarsgate

Thanks for that. I suspected as much.

I've tried A. no success.
I'm going to try B. this evening.

Splasher

The irony is the creak is more likely to be your saddle rails or seat-post than your crank joint.

You can try a couple of other things before you resort to the drill. Your self extracting screw will press back on a threaded washer that probably has two holes in the outside face (see gold bits in pic below)



Remove these by unscrewing with a punch or the end of a small flat screwdriver and a hammer to tap them anti-clockwise. This will give better access to the screw below. Put your Allen key in and tap it home with a hammer and retry. You are now just removing the screw, rather than using the screw to extract the crank and the force required is minimal by comparison.

If it comes, use a traditional crank puller to remove the crank.

If it doesn't try knocking an oversized torx bit into the ruined hex in the screw and undoing.

If all else fails, carefully drill the head off the screw and remove the crank with a puller before removing the remainder of the screw with some mole grips or similar.

toasty

Splasher wrote:

The irony is the creak is more likely to be your saddle rails or seat-post than your crank joint.

Yeah, it's normally my pedal threads, they eat grease!

allthegearnoidea

if you have the drive side off, try squirting some penetrating lube down onto the threads of the stripped bolt to aid removal before fully attacking!!!
another option if you have a long enough drill bit, drill it out fron the opposite side as by doing this the added vibration and heat maywell loosen it and undo it for you!
used to be able to get hold of left handed drill bits for the very reason of stripped threads, but not so easily available now!

hammering a torx bit is a good plan as long as the metal isnt too soft!