oneclick 

When using washers for this kind of situation, the orientation almost always matters.

Most washers are stamped.
One side will have rounded edges, the other sharp ones.
Place the washer so the sharp edges face outward, not against the aluminium surface.

reroll

Yes! You know about washers. Good to see someone who pays attention to details.

Steel Charlie

A conical seat and the average pedal installer would probably make for more exploded cranks than the world has ever seen.

And the Campy pedal eye breaks were probably because the threads were too tight. In the 80's I saw Campy threads so tight the pedal would barely start. Guess why there's a pedal tap in those big Campy tool boxes.

tiger1964 

Glad I checked this topic one more time; I have a bag o' washers arriving and am eager to get pedals installed on a project.

Chombi1 

The only cranksets I ever bought from brand new was a Stronglight 104 bis and a Stronglight 106, brand new in their boxes, back in the first half of the 80's, and I don't remember both having any washers for the pedal threaded holes......Bought lots of new pedals of different brands for my bikes, modern and C&V and also never encountered these said washers with them......Never found them on C&V bikes I"ve bought all these years too.So I don't worry aboit something I never saw and never suffered any consequences doing so all these years.​​​too.only time I encountered washers between two rolling components were between the rear hub and the freewheel, which is more like a shim for chain line clearance from the DS spokes.......

JohnDThompson 

Maybe so, but Campagnolo stopped including pedal taps in the "complete" tool box in the 70s. I bought mine in '85 and had to buy VAR taps separately. Here's the toolkit contents as shown in Catalog 18:

Campagnolo did continue to offer pedals taps in their "Special Tools section, but not included in the boxed kits:

eaglerock

The early Campagnolo cranks from the 1950s had the same "blind" holes.

I seem to recall Richard Bryne (former CEO of Speedplay and patron of the Speedplay Pedal Museum, currently in drydock ) posting to the Classic Rendezvous Google group on this subject within the last few years. My understanding in both cases was that those plugged pedal holes were exclusively on aluminum crankarms, which were thicker than the traditional steel arms in order to provide equivalent durability (I've never seen a steel crankarm with a similar plug). But the universe of pedals up to that point (circa 1960) had all been designed for steel cranks; accordingly, the pedal axle stubs were shorter, because the pedal eyes were shallower, as was the case with the exquisitely beautiful TA pedals from the early 50s and the first generation of Campagnolo Record pedals in the late 50s.

When a pedal intended for a steel crankarm was mounted on an aluminum crankarm, the extra depth of the pedal eye left a few threads exposed at the back - unsightly, inelegant, and an accumulation point for road crud. More persnickety crank manufacturers like Specialites T.A. and Campagnolo plugged the empty space with an aluminum insert. Later, when aluminum cranks were displacing steel cranks in the peleton, pedal axle stubs got longer to provide more contact with the full pedal eye. For non-blinded arms, this just meant the axle stub filled the full depth of the pedal eye; for blinded holes, tightening the longer axle stub into the hole pushed the plug out of the back of the crankarm.

Here's another point: Not only did TA include pedal washers with their cranks, but on their pre-80s cranksets, they machined (or cast?) insets specifically to fit those pedal washers. Regardez:




Personally, I use pedal washers on every alloy crankset I mount, and I used them on the one carbon crankset I owned for about five minutes fifteen years ago. Why not? They only cost a couple bucks a set, and they may help to prevent/postpone a potential traumatic accident-causing breakage.

(and yes, I use French threaded cranks+pedals on most of my bikes, with generic 9/16" pedal washers I mostly grab up at Rivendell headquarters on my many journeys through nearby Walnut Creek; the size difference is too trivial for me to notice. Frankly, until I read this thread, I never even considered that there might be different sizes of pedal washers)

Peter in Berkeley

tiger1964 

NOT French like the OP, but the last couple of times I installed new (spd) pedals in existing Campagnolo cranks, they were eye-poppingly tight to install. I am a couple of hours away from the next install; I tried test-fitting by fingers, and again tight. And I happen to have a set of generic (not Brev. Camp.) pedal taps. I do not want to remove too much metal -- these are taps, not thread-chasers -- but is this a normal 'thing' to run a tap through on Campy cranks?

oneclick 

Italian standard thread form uses 55 degrees; ISO is 60.

tiger1964 

So, as I understand that, the diameter and TPI are the same, the threat profile is steeper on ISO than Italian? That implies:
(a) Thus why I have quite a bit of resistance putting SPD pedals on a Campy crank (and I presume this is Campy used on an Italian or an English bike? My Sutherland's manual says "English and Italian pedals are interchangeable"). and
(b) I'll guess that the tap set I have had the ordering description "9/16-20 Right & Left Hand Thread Tap HSS 9/16'' - 20 TPI for Bike Crank Repair" with no detail, AND the SPD pedals are both ISO, so a "good fit" with each other?
(c) And, finally, if I tap them out with what I have, that should work but it could be problematic to go back to Campy pedals?

tricky 

Been around a long time. I've seen people post that they use them religiously but I rarely seem them.

tiger1964 

I wanted to apologize to the OP for any topic drift.

I almost 100% would have gotten that backwards!

Well, I just tapped my Campy cranks out, yeah it took a little metal out but really fine. SPD pedals went in like velvet, and then just when I got finger-tight I realized I had left out the washers! All is well now and I have several pairs of washers now for future projects.

ollo_ollo

My Zeus crankset has them. (Seller gave me a note warning he had very hard time finding them, finally locating some with a pair of dust caps at great expense) I'm not that fanatical on originality and wouldn't hesitate to use 9/16" washers, but took great care to not lose these when overhauling the bike. Don