Johncjones79562

I have an older bike I wanted to clean up and ride again. It has been awhile. Attempting to remove the left crank arm of the gossamer FSA crankset. The left crankarm has offet bolts I unscrewed. There is a cap on the end on the left side that does not appear to be a hex and does not pop off. I wish I could post pictures at this time. Unable to get the crankarm off due to the cap. Wd40 and used the mallet on it. I got to be missing something. Any hints or suggestions? Thank you.

easyupbug 

Try this site to find your crank, lots of possibilities including self extracting,
https://www.fullspeedahead.com/en/su...n?category=129

Iride01 

A lot of crank manufacturers put the exact model and version numbers of the crank on the backside of the crankarm. Usually around the hole for the pedal. Those numbers would be useful or just take a picture and upload it to the Gallery here on BF and just tell us it's there. Though there have be issue with the pic Gallery this last week.

Johncjones79562

CK-6020. 170mm
The left side has an end cap with a small hole. A 4mm hex can fit in there but does not appear to be the wrench. What tool do I need to remove the end cap?

gearbasher

Stolen pic from ebay. Is this what you're describing? If so, I can't help. But maybe some can after seeing the pic.

Johncjones79562

Yes. The crank looks like this but black.

Crankycrank

Gotta ask. Did you loosen the two crank arm clamp bolts before trying to undo the cap?

easyupbug 

I am not FSA expect but to me that does not look like a cap, that is a stripped out hex socket on a preload bolt from trying to remove it w/o loosening the two pinch bolts. Unfortunately not that uncommon. Try a slightly larger SAE hex wrench, maybe with a little filing after loosing the pinch bolts.

oldbobcat

Sometimes a torx key can be used to loosen a stripped hex nut, too. But by all means, if it's stripped, replace it when you put it all back together.

rm -rf

The cap unscrews after the two bolts are completely loose. It's for setting the bearing preload.

I really like the Park Tool repair guides. They are step-by-step so I can try procedures I don't know anything about.
Even if I think I know how, it's saved me from a mistake a few times! And some things aren't very obvious, but are actually easy once I see how to do it correctly.

Here's your crankset: Two piece compression slotted crankset. I see that newer FSA cranks use 8mm for the cap -- that's a better design. The older 4mm method is the same, it's just the plastic socket can get damaged.

When I had a Gossamer crankset, it would start to creak or click when under load. About once a year, I had to remove the crankarm, clean and grease the splines, and reinstall it. Easy after the first time! The preload cap needs to be set correctly, often with just a slight amount of finger pressure on my Y wrench.

Johncjones79562

Thank you for the replies. I completely removed the clamp bolts. I will try a torx and a bigger hex wrench.

rm -rf

Oh, torx sounds good. I'd try that first.
I have a set of drill driver bits in torx. These are tapered toward the tip: the T25 tips are 3.8mm, with the base of the flutes at 4.4mm, so it would make a snug fit on a rounded out socket. These torx bits are machined down from a wider shaft size.
My set of folding torx has T25 too, but the base is hex shaped and only 4.05mm, the tip is 3.8mm. This wouldn't help.

Johncjones79562

In the end it was pretty stripped out. Had to use bolt extractor kit to drill a guide hole and remove. I have a used set on the way. Thank you for the suggestions.

Freerojo

Don’t forget to hold on to the Wavewasher for the left crank, the used one might not have it.