From: josh@Happy-Man.com (Joshua_Putnam)
Subject: Re: CRANK PULLING PROBLEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Keywords: TRY SOMETHING MORE BASIC
Reply-To: Joshua_Putnam@happy-man.com
Organization: Happy Man Corp., Vashon Island, WA 98070-7399
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 17:31:46 GMT

In <102095@netnews.upenn.edu> mellon@a.chem.upenn.edu (Matthew T. Mellon) writes:

>My goodness!!
>	Hacksaws?  Sawzalls?  Put the fixed cup in a vise and use the
>frame as a wrench (wouldn't the spider sorta kinda be in the way?)?

>	Come, come now.  I've done this twice within the past few weeks.
>The best, most time-saving, least costly, least destructive to the bike,
>is to, no matter how much it hurts, remove the fixed cup.  Period.

I have to disagree -- using a puller designed for removing cranks
with stripped puller threads works much faster than trying to get
the fixed cup off with the crank in the way.  Any really good
shop ought to have at least one of the several versions
available.

>Second, get that fixed cup out--no excuses.  Shoot the BB full of oil (I use
>TriFlow, which works) from both sides--really load that sucker.  Then get
>a closed BB fixed cup wrench (though I don't like how thin most Park wrenches
>are, this is the only thing that will work here--it has a small opening to 
>pass it over the spindle).  You may need another person to apply pressure
>against the wrench towards the frame, in order to prevent a rather painful
>slip.  Then, get that cup out!  

Another advantage of using a proper puller is that it doesn't 
depend on the fixed cup being in good enough shape to fit a wrench.  
If you'll pardon the gross generalization, the type of rider whose 
cranks get stuck on hard enough to make the threads pull out is the 
same type who puts on fixed cups using a poorly-adjusted crescent 
wrench and a big hammer :-)  [Like I said, it's a gross 
overgeneralization.  As in anything else, bike shop horror stories 
are more memorable than routine repairs.]  

>Once out, put the crank in a vice, nice and
>tight.  Then aim it towards a safe place, and hammer that spindle out of the
>crank.  Be warned, it may get severly damaged, but $8 is no great loss for a 
>new spindle, compared with hours of hacksawing, blade after blade after blade.

Actually, a sawzall takes less than two minutes to cut a crank
arm away from a spindle, and this doesn't put much wear on the
blade if you use a good cutting lube.  All you need is a blade
designed for soft metals.  It's slower than a puller, but it does
work!   It will also damage the spindle if you aren't very
careful, but what's a spindle once you've decided to destroy the
crank?  At least the new one will have no fatigue built up.

>Oh, about that retapping idea--the
>metal for the threads has been stripped OUT, i.e. it's gone.  Forever.  You
>could only tap it for a diameter larger than that of a crank puller.

I used to have a thread chaser for the larger-diameter threads
you find on the rarely-used side of a Park universal puller.  It
could cut usable threads in some stripped crank arms.  (Then
someone would try threading in a standard crank puller and
destroy these threads, too.)
-- 
 Joshua_Putnam@happy-man.com    Happy Man Corp.  206/463-9399 x102
 4410 SW Pt. Robinson Rd., Vashon Island, WA  98070-7399  fax x108
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From: jbrandt@hplred.HPL.HP.COM (Jobst Brandt)
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 00:56:42 GMT
Subject: Re: Where's the Indexing?
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, CA