masi61

The good news: I'm riding pretty consistently already this spring. I climb quite a few hills up and down the Little Miami River Valley near Bellbrook, Ohio where I live. I can climb seated or standing. I'm not the best climber but I'm also not the worst in my bike club.

The bad news: I rarely can keep my cranks +/or pedals silent for very long. I seem to be really hard on my Shimano Dura Ace 9000 and 9100 pedals. These top of the line Shimano pedals have loose ball bearings and adjustable cones/locknuts that seem to require a rebuild at least once a year. I notice that when I clean around my pedal axle/crank interface, I am constantly wiping away small amounts of black grease. Once I see this, I will start to hear a faint ticking. If I ignore the ticking, the noise worsens and eventually I will feel play in the pedal axle. If I am still trying to ride the same pedals on the steeper hills I end up climbing seated because the pressure on the bike while standing starts to do damage to the parts at this point. I have a set of Dura Ace 9000 pedals in the process of being rebuilt for the second time where the hardened bearing race in the pedal body is delaminating from the socket that it was glued or soldered into. A few ribbons of foil-like steel had to be scraped away around the edges of the race. I plan to see if the pedal will hold up for this 2nd rebuild.

I'm starting the season weighing in at 205 pounds. My weight probably contributes to the wear and tear on these pedal adjustments making me need to rebuild them more frequently.

What have other Clydes run into with respect to pedal durability? Thanks for any feedback you can give.

zjrog

I'm going to SERIOUSLY doubt your weight is the issue. I say this as I have been significantly heavier.And significantly stronger in the past. That was when I broke things. Power. 30 years ago and at 230. And for the past 18 months, I've lost nearly 140 pounds (378 to 240ish) and never destroyed any pedals. Actually rebuilt the MKS pedals I DIDN'T destroy 30 years ago recently.

masi61

That speaks volumes to the durability of MKS pedals! For over 20 years the only clipless pedals I used (I had the same style on 3 different bikes so I could use the same set of cleats) were MKS MapStage. They never clicked but I actually re-greased them about once every year or two.

And thank you for saying my weight is not the issue. I kind of thought it was the Dura Ace pedals. It could have been that my first re-build did not keep because of some failure on my part to sufficiently tighten the cone right up to the point where there was no free play, just to the point of bearings starting to grind. I’m going back at it with my tweezers, my micro grease gun, the correct cone wrenches (20mm & 14mm I believe) & snap ring pliers and hopefully this next rebuild (I have 2 sets of the 9000’s to do now) will keep.

I have learned one one thing about using excess grease: too much can mask the correct bearing preload since the excess gets squashed out anyway, then what you are left with is a bearing adjustment ever so slightly loose.

I thought these re-buildable Dura Ace pedals would be for me but I’m beginning to think that the Ultegra version with the cartridge bearings might require less maintenance and be fine for less money. Shimano pricing is up anyway due to their lockdown of European grey market sales to the US a couple years back.

cyclist2000

I don't think the Ultegra SPD-SL pedals has cartridge bearings

https://si.shimano.com/pdfs/ev/EV-PD-R8000-4232.pdf

masi61

Oh yeah - I stand corrected. I think what I was talking about is that the Ultegra pedal uses an axle assembly (item #1 of the exploded diagram). I’ve seen where you can purchase the entire axle assembly separately. More of a low maintenance option for refreshing your pedals if you chose not to deal with all those tiny ball bearings.

masi61

https://www.paul-lange.de/index.php/...-9000-3329.pdf

Here is the link for the Dura Ace PD-9000 pedals.

ts99

Dang!!!

masi61

Yeah! @zjrog really is inspirational. I agree with him that my weight is not likely to be the cause of my pedal clicking.

The cause is is apparently a tiny bit of free play that develops in the Dura Ace 9000 pedals. I was in my garage with an LED headlight, some paper towels, my new 3/32” bearings yesterday and practicing a rebuild on one of the pedals. I was out of practice and having difficulty getting the 9 little bearings into the far end of the pedal body. Turns out I had more than 9 in there. I had to magnetize the tip of a scriber and fish them out and count them. Now I have the right # in there - 9. The axle subassembly inner bearing that is closer to the crank has 17 of the 3/32” bearings held in place with a circlip. I found that I was able to lay a very thin bead of grease with my Pedro’s mini grease gun while holding the axle up vertically on a shop rag. I got all 17 bearings to stay put while I clicked the circlip in place. That makes those 17 bearings stay where I want them while I then adjust the cup and cone to dial out all play then lock down the thin lock nut with the 20mm cone wrench.

I’m crossing my fingers that after I swap these out on my triple chainring road bike, my standing climbing should be click and creak free. I used my 3/8” drive T-handle with a 5mm Allen socket and a Shimano flat chainring nut tool to double check the tightness of all 3 chainring. I was able to tight 3 or 4 of them slightly. But when I went out riding yesterday and did my hills, the ticking was still there, so I’m fairly confident that the clicking noise is pedal generated.

sdmc530

I have a bike with 105 pedals, one with the Ultegra and two with the 540 model whatever level they are. Anyway I have been using the 105's for years and not one issue. The Ultegra are newer but no issues and one of the two 540's are probably a decade or so old and not one issue with any Shimano pedal I have ever used. I was once at 336 on those and was all good. Maybe your BB???



Not meaning to thread jack but CONGRATS!! This is excellent for you!

zjrog

Thank you. At 230 pounds, I used to break pedal axles. Friends used to give me things to try and break. What I didn't break, everyone bought... I'll never be that strong again. I'll never hammer up hills that same way. I'd like to think I'm much smarter now.

masi61

+1

tallbikeman

One of the most annoying issues is a click, creak, ping, snap or other not normal bicycle sound while riding I recently built a drop bar 1980"s era steel Nishiki Sebring with used Raceface Square Taper 180mm Cranks. Something on the right side creaked in time with the pedal stroke. I changed out the pedal with another, still the noise. I changed out the crank no noise. So the issue came down to that JIS Square Taper connection. Eventually I found a torque rating for Raceface and using a torque wrench I tightened the crank to axle bolt. That got rid of the creaking. There was more to that story but the proper torque was the answer so far. Using a process of elimination led me to the culprit. I don't own any loose ball pedals anymore. I use Welgo platforms and a Velo Orange platform. All have either a bushing inner bearing and outer cartridge bearing or two cartridge bearings. These pedals get noisy and need maintenance every few years. But normally they are very quiet. Try some other pedal and see if the creaking stops. If not try changing the cranks, then the bottom bracket axle and bearings. I even closely checked the frame for micro cracks. Unwanted noises are very annoying. Good luck finding the culprit.