Help! Think I broke my brand new bikeT

[240Cup]

Think I have made a schoolboy error..!

Just picked up a new Boardman team Carbon and bought some nice SPD SL pedals to go on it, it has FSA arms.

never had a road bike before, or cleats.

went to fit the pedals and started on the left hand side (not chain set side) with the pedal cleat facing forwards which looked logical (or so I thought). Really REALLY stiff to do the pedal up but managed to get it all the way on.

Then saw in the instructions the cleat mechanism actually sits at the back of the pedal so I undid the pedal and put it on the chainset side, where it went on REALLY REALLY easy. Alarm bells!

Now the other pedal won't go on the non-chainset side and it looks like I have bu@@ered' all the threads in the arm..! The threads on the pedal look OK.

Would a bike shop be able to re-tap the threads or do I need a new arm? Also if the correct pedal went on REALLY easy on the chainset side have I compromised that side as well i.e. will it never do up tight enough?

ARGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

[Rolls]

yip - you'll have threaded the pedal arm : the pedals will have a L and an R on them, which correspond to which side of the bike they sit on : and as you've found out, the threads are reversed!

[upsidedownmark]

Chainset side fine - they should wind in easy/by hand. (you'll need to nip it up with a spanner / allen key at the end).

As said, you've borked the other side. The good news is you may well be able to buy the left crank arm on it's own - might wanna get help fitting that tho

[pembo]

I'm sure I read somewhere recently that you can fix this by screwing the pedal into the other side of the crank arm (so that it would hit the frame if you were to turn it) as it can sometimes push the beggared threads back to where they should be so that you can take the pedal out and put it on the right side.

Not I'm not sure if this works and I have never had to do it but if you've wrecked it anyway it might be worth a go to see if you can salvage something.

I'd stick some copper grease on the pedal thread first too to help you get it back out but I'll leave that up to you.

[hornetrider]

pembo said:

but I'll leave that up to you.

Brave...

[Kermit power]

pembo said:

I'm sure I read somewhere recently that you can fix this by screwing the pedal into the other side of the crank arm (so that it would hit the frame if you were to turn it) as it can sometimes push the beggared threads back to where they should be so that you can take the pedal out and put it on the right side.

Not I'm not sure if this works and I have never had to do it but if you've wrecked it anyway it might be worth a go to see if you can salvage something.

I'd stick some copper grease on the pedal thread first too to help you get it back out but I'll leave that up to you.

Even if that did work, I don't think I'd ever want to ride it! A pedal coming off at speed with no warning doesn't sound like fun!

[JSquaredJim]

Go to your local tool shop. Take the pedal and the arm. Buy a thread tap of the correct size. reapir thread, job done.

[Get2Jaime]

JSquaredJim said:

Go to your local tool shop. Take the pedal and the arm. Buy a thread tap of the correct size. reapir thread, job done.

This, a good quality bike shop should have a thread to re tap the crank arm, depends how badly you've damaged it.

For complete piece of mind, replace the left hand crank....at least you did it on the cheaper side of the bottom bracket!

[240Cup]

Right then, bit of an update from the pedal numptie.

I used an old pedal and with some pressure inwards screwed it THE CORRECT WAY into the arm and it eventually 'bit' and screwed all the way in and did up tight.

Took it off, and then put the new SPD SL one on, and that did up tight too.

So maybe it is OK?

[Funk]

Will you ever trust it?

[deadtom]

if you can do the pedal up pretty tight even on the damaged threads then job's a good'un.

I've done this before and never had it fail on me unexpectedly, and I dare say I put my bikes through more abuse than most

[gazza285]

Worst case is get it helicoiled, a proper bike shop should be able to do it.

[TheLemming]

On the bright side, time for an upgrade?

The FSA cranks on those look like crap after a few months and are pretty hefty. A new chainset won't cost the earth and is a great way of chiselling off the grams