pedal bearing designs and morons writing about them

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nez
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Re: pedal bearing designs and morons writing about them

Post by nez »

Mick F wrote:They are brilliant pedals.
Absolutely smitten by them.

Speedplay Frogs.
http://www.speedplay.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.frog

I think they are being classed as obsolescent now as some sellers don't seem to have them now, but you can still find them out there, and Speedplay have them on their website.

I have them on both bikes, and TBH, I may buy a spare set if they start getting rare.
TBH if we keep greasing them the amount you and I do they’ll last forever. Archaeologists will find them in a thousand years and will ask ‘I wonder what these were for?’
‘Ritual’ will say some bright spark.
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Mick F
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Re: pedal bearing designs and morons writing about them

Post by Mick F »

:lol:
It'll be the cleats that'll wear, but I have a spare set. No doubt they will remain available for quite some time yet, though not cheap and I'll have to search for them. Seems like Amazon will be ok for now. Maybe I should buy another pair.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/SpeedPlay-Frog ... B000P0VKR2

I put Frogs on the Moulton some years back. The pedals come with a pair of cleats so they went on my new shoes. A summer or three later, I bought a pair of cycling sandals so had to buy another pair of cleats for them.

When I fitted Frogs to Mercian in replacement to Campag road pedals, they too came with cleats of course.
Sold my road shoes, so now use the same shoes on both bikes, and have have the pair of sandals for the summer for both bikes ........ meanwhile I still have the new cleats from the second Frogs.
Mick F. Cornwall
fastpedaller
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Re: pedal bearing designs and morons writing about them

Post by fastpedaller »

All this talk of pedals has prompted me to service my shimano m520's on both my bikes which are 6 years old, my observations follow:-
a) The pedals off my single-speed bike (generally only used during Winter) before and after removal moved nicely with no grinding or looseness
b) the plastic bush was a lot tighter than expected - mounting the pedal 'platforms' in the vice and using a campagnolo fixed cup spanner which was a perfect fit on the Shimano plastic tool did the trick
c) The spindle complete with bearings was removed, and looked clean and perfect, so rather than disturb everything I just added some fresh grease and re-assembled these pedals.
d) On my geared bike (which gets used the most) the pedals seemed ok on the bike, with no noticeable grinding or looseness.
e) Once removed from the cranks, if the spindles of both pedals were turned there was noticeable grittiness which seemed to be from the lip seals
f) Similarly to the first pair, the bushings took quite some force to free them.
g) I dismantled the bearing assemblies and the balls and cones were like new, so just kept the parts in the correct order and greased and reassembled. There was indeed some grit between the spindle and lip seal, the lip seal was carefully cleaned and it was noticed that there are witness marks where the lip seals (the grit) were.
h) As previously highlighted by Brucey (in another thread?) the cone and locknut on the Right pedal are LH threaded - which meant my brain kept trying to make my hands do the opposite to required!
I) Adjusting these bearings (also experienced with the Left pedal) doesn't seem as easy as expected, (maybe I'm being fussy) but there seems to be a 'removal of preload' before the bush is replaced in the pedal housing - I found I had to adjust the bearing a couple of times because it either tightened when everything was replaced, or had a very slight play which wasn't apparent when the spindle was out.
But as others have said, a first class pedal - I really expected more foreign matter or indeed some wear, and was pleasantly surprised.

I wonder if there is a simple way to clear grit from the lip seal without going through the bearing removal - I suspect not.
fatboy
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Re: pedal bearing designs and morons writing about them

Post by fatboy »

Sweep wrote:
fatboy wrote:
reohn2 wrote:FWIW,SPD M520'S are fantastic,great ball bearings which last seemingly forever(I've yet to wearout the bearings on any one of the six pair I own and use and some are almost 20 years old.) needing only occasional adjustment,cheap @ £20 to £30, cleats can be worn with touring,mtb or road shoes,secure and solid platform and plenty of float.
Simply brilliant.


What he said! Get the cheap plastic tool and grease regularly by dismantling, filling the pedal void and the squidge it back together; it's messy but makes them run nice and smooth. I usually wear out the tops before the bearings!

Have you ever bothered taking the ball bearings out/adjusting or just left in place and greased? I ask as it looks a tad fiddly and I am wary of spoiling something.
I stress that I am not a total mechanical incompetent - I have dismantled and adjusted headsets and wheel bearings.


Occasionally I tighten the cones but usually I let the grease come out clean. Never done anything else and this includes my commuting bike
"Marriage is a wonderful invention; but then again so is the bicycle puncture repair kit." - Billy Connolly
pwa
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Re: pedal bearing designs and morons writing about them

Post by pwa »

I did once totally dismantle the whole axle assembly and it was very fiddly to reassemble and adjust so my own approach is not to meddle with it until and unless it goes wrong. If I take the assembly out I just wipe it down, wipe old grease out of the pedal body, put too much grease in the pedal body them screw the axle assembly back in. As it goes in it takes some force due to the excess grease, but pretty soon the new grease pushes old grease out past the seals. And when you have the thing fully screwed back in you know there is plenty of new grease where it matters.
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Sweep
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Re: pedal bearing designs and morons writing about them

Post by Sweep »

pwa wrote:I did once totally dismantle the whole axle assembly and it was very fiddly to reassemble and adjust so my own approach is not to meddle with it until and unless it goes wrong. If I take the assembly out I just wipe it down, wipe old grease out of the pedal body, put too much grease in the pedal body them screw the axle assembly back in. As it goes in it takes some force due to the excess grease, but pretty soon the new grease pushes old grease out past the seals. And when you have the thing fully screwed back in you know there is plenty of new grease where it matters.

thanks for the reply.
I lean towards your approach - ie just wiping/cleaning and putting lots of new grease in then screwing the whole thing back together.

I cannot help but wonder whether total degreasing of the existing mech is really necessary. Is the new grease, even if not exactly the same formulation as the small remaining slivers of the old, really going to react with it in any really terrible harmful way?
Sweep
fastpedaller
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Re: pedal bearing designs and morons writing about them

Post by fastpedaller »

I agree with the above, but couldn't see a simple way of cleaning the lip seal/spindle interface which was clearly 'grindy'
fastpedaller
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Re: pedal bearing designs and morons writing about them

Post by fastpedaller »

fastpedaller wrote:I agree with the above, but couldn't see a simple way of cleaning the lip seal/spindle interface which was clearly 'grindy'


I see now.... I should have just put a generous amount of grease inside and then let the hydraulics take care of cleaning the lip seal when I put the sleeve back! Note to self for next time!
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Mick F
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Re: pedal bearing designs and morons writing about them

Post by Mick F »

The good thing about the Frog design, is that there is no way into them for the muck and water.
Providing you remove the small countersunk screw and inject grease until it emerges by the spindle, and any small amount of ingress at the spindle end will be pushed out with the grease.

3D view.
http://www.speedplay.com/index.cfm?fuse ... ome.frog3d
Mick F. Cornwall
Brucey
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Re: pedal bearing designs and morons writing about them

Post by Brucey »

fastpedaller wrote:
fastpedaller wrote:I agree with the above, but couldn't see a simple way of cleaning the lip seal/spindle interface which was clearly 'grindy'


I see now.... I should have just put a generous amount of grease inside and then let the hydraulics take care of cleaning the lip seal when I put the sleeve back! Note to self for next time!


yep, that is the method.

The main purpose of cleaning is usually to

a)_allow inspection of the parts and
b) to remove wear debris from the bearing

The former isn't normally required (with tiny bearings like these any wear or roughness is immediately apparent) and the 'grease purge' takes care of the latter. It doesn't matter if you change grease type; there will be virtually none of the old grease left in most cases, if the purge is done in the normal way.

To assess free play in the bearing when the spindle is out of the pedal, it is a good idea to attach something (temporarily) to the outer part of the bearing assy. A small pair of mole grips works for me (if not set tightly). There is a photo and a write up in the 'SPD compendium' thread.

cheers
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Brucey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
fastpedaller
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Re: pedal bearing designs and morons writing about them

Post by fastpedaller »

Thanks for that Brucey - On further searching into the 'too good to lose' I indeed found your guide. The difficulty I found with adjusting the bearings was that they didn't seem to go tight at all :) My usual method is to start adjustment by momentarily feeling a tightness/roughness, and loosening more and more to the point just before and shake can be felt. Neither extreme felt obvious, and that may have been testament to the very good quality. Anyway, I loosened off and got no perceptible play. Today I decided to fiddle again :roll: and just removed the plastic bushes, inserted a blob of grease and tightening the bush was rewarded with a good hydraulic which was re-assuring and will be the method of choice in future. The lip seals were dislodged, but with a little persuasion from a mcDonalds coffee stirrer (useful soft tools, and good for mixing GRP resin also) the seal was eased back into place, confident that there is sufficient grease to keep anything out. Wonderfully smooth pedals!
Brucey
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Re: pedal bearing designs and morons writing about them

Post by Brucey »

just in case others need to find the relevant thread

https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=66078&p=564170

Re bearing adjustment; the best method is (always checking with the locknut tight of course) to have a little free play that just disappears following a tiny adjustment. As you say if the bearings are smooth then a small preload isn't readily discernable, and the preload may increase fractionally once the spindle is reinstalled depending on the fit in the pedal body. I normally don't worry about the latter thing BTW, although I have occasionally encountered pedals in which the fit is not quite good enough; often swapping parts between sets of pedals results in a good fit all round.

With cartridge bearings you are shooting for single figures of microns clearance (or preload). With good cup and cone bearings like SPD ones you can (IMHO) do better than an average cartridge bearing setup, but you need to be prepared to adjust the cone in tiny increments; two or three degrees is about right.

cheers
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MikeF
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Re: pedal bearing designs and morons writing about them

Post by MikeF »

pwa wrote: I bought some very expensive Crank Bros Eggbeater pedals with stainless everything and one snapped on me, but only after several hundred miles of struggling with a fickle engagement procedure that was less predictable than Shimano.
"Stainless Steel" is not good for everything, but only suitable components.
"It takes a genius to spot the obvious" - my old physics master.
I don't peddle bikes.
pwa
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Re: pedal bearing designs and morons writing about them

Post by pwa »

MikeF wrote:
pwa wrote: I bought some very expensive Crank Bros Eggbeater pedals with stainless everything and one snapped on me, but only after several hundred miles of struggling with a fickle engagement procedure that was less predictable than Shimano.
"Stainless Steel" is not good for everything, but only suitable components.

I resolved, after that incident, to do three things. Number one was to never buy a Crank Bros pedal again. Number two was to return to the Shimano pedals that had never let me down and which I had been daft not to stick with in the first place. And thirdly, I resolved to stick to axles made from a steel chosen for its strength rather than corrosion resistance (they never rust much anyway), and not trust any exotic axle material for pedals. I have become conservative over pedal axles. I want chromo and plenty of it, with a flat for a spanner in case the allen key socket rounds off.
MikeF
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Re: pedal bearing designs and morons writing about them

Post by MikeF »

pwa wrote:
MikeF wrote:
pwa wrote: I bought some very expensive Crank Bros Eggbeater pedals with stainless everything and one snapped on me, but only after several hundred miles of struggling with a fickle engagement procedure that was less predictable than Shimano.
"Stainless Steel" is not good for everything, but only suitable components.

I resolved, after that incident, to do three things. Number one was to never buy a Crank Bros pedal again. Number two was to return to the Shimano pedals that had never let me down and which I had been daft not to stick with in the first place. And thirdly, I resolved to stick to axles made from a steel chosen for its strength rather than corrosion resistance (they never rust much anyway), and not trust any exotic axle material for pedals. I have become conservative over pedal axles. I want chromo and plenty of it, with a flat for a spanner in case the allen key socket rounds off.
That is how they should be made. ( Don't buy a stainless steel spade - another example of wrong material)
"It takes a genius to spot the obvious" - my old physics master.
I don't peddle bikes.
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