My wife’s bike has the old-style square shaft bb and I cannot get the cranks to come off. I have all the correct tools and nothing can make these stinkers budge. By my math they have been on and never off since 1996.
Any tricks?
What tool are you using? The Park crank tool? If so, be careful to not tear the threads out…then things get real nasty. I would try WD40 or a penitrating oil on the bb spindle. Sometimes it even works to tighten the crank on a bit just to get it to move, then take it off.
I have seen where we needed to take a gear puller to it…and that will usually mess up the look of the crank arm…serious cases only (and only if you also strip the threads)
I have the Park Tool. I have been very careful not to get bionic on the thing as I do not wish to destroy them. I’ll try some penetrating oil and then crank on the cranks again.
Use more leverage! Seriously, get the biggest wrench you can find, make sure the crankset threads are clean before screwing in the crank puller as tight as possible, then tighten the inner part of the puller. The bigger the wrench, the easier it will be to force the crankset off of the bb.
Also, if you’ve got the crank puller that can be used for either splined or square tapered bb’s, make sure you have the right tip on it! The splined one is bigger and if you try to use that on a square bb, you’ll at best just frustrate yourself, at worse ruin the crankset.
Good luck!
Chris
make sure the washer is out, and your pushing on the spindle end and not on the forgotten washer
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I have actually popped the park tool’s handle with a hammer to loosen this type of crank arm. As a matter of fact, I can’t remeber one time that it came off under normal pressure. I have done this 30-40 times without ever hurting the cranks. Just be careful and take it slow.
hacksaw…