Short Version: My non driveside crank arm won't stay tightened after I took it off to clean and inspect. Any ideas why? Long version: really it is too long: Four miles into my eight mile commute at 6:30 on Monday morning last week, I felt a wobble as I pedaled. The left crank arm had worked loose and was almost off the bottom bracket spindle. Fortunately the crank bolt had not fallen out. Taking out my tool bag I discovered I had no hex wrench large enough to fit the bolt. I pushed the arm on as far as I could, hand tightened the bolt, and used a needle nose pliers to tighten the bolt a bit more. A mile later, the crank arm worked loose again. I repeated by previous repair. This happened twice more before I was able to make it to work. Worst case scenario would have found me walking up hills and coasting down them, which would have been fine. I wasn't late and it wasn't cold or rainy. Once at work, the fine folks in my facilities office had the appropriately sized hex wrench. I tightened the bolt and enjoyed a trouble free ride home.
Four commutes later, or about 64 miles, the same crank arm loosened again. This time I had the tool and tightened it. About 100 miles before the arm came loose the first time, I had taken off both crank arms to clean and inspect. Now I am nervous. Have I stripped the bottom bracket spindle/bolt interface? Have I over greased the BB spindle and crank arm? ( I have had no trouble on the driveside) Thoughts? (I have ordered a new crankset/BB as this combo has 10,000+/- miles trouble free till now) (crankset is a Nashbar mountain triple (ISIS) on a Nashbar BB (ISIS)) Several other questions for the "MacGyvers" and engineers to satisfy my curiosity: 1) Any other ideas for tightening a loose crank bolt without a hex wrench? 2) With a loose crank arm, is it better to pedal in a high gear and mash fewer strokes for power, or spin in a lower gear with less force, or does it matter in regard to how quickly the arm will work loose? Thanks, Erl, who now has a hex wrench that fits his crank bolts in his tool bag, Houston PS: on my commute this morning, on a different bike, I broke the chain. I did have the right tools. Feeling like I have momentarily fallen out of favor with the cycling gods. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
