So my best friend moved away and he gave me his bike that he hadn’t used for a while. It’s a blue bmx (I’ve been looking for a new bike for a while) and everything about it is fine except for the fact that the left pedal is completely snapped off the shaft and there is a bit of leftover screw in the shaft. I’ve tried to find a replacement but I couldn’t find any single pedal cranks that were decently priced for just one. If I can’t get the screw out of the shaft my only other option is to buy a whole new shaft kit with the crank arms and all which is not cheap. I really wanna get this bike fixed for under $50. It seems like such a small part of the bike costs a lot. Anyways if anyone’s got any advice on how to get just one crank arm with all the screws necessary, that would be awesome. Thank you
Ps: if anyone has any tips for painting it that would be great too cuz I’m not super keen on the electric blue.
by WilierAgenda789
2 Comments
Knock the spindle through and out with a hammer and a length of rod (socket set extension bar, or an old centre punch or whatever).
You can buy sets of tungsten carbide bits with a reversed cutting thread that are for reversing out snapped bolts and studs. You drill them in and in theory once they are drilled in far enough to bite, they turn out the stuck piece because they are reverse threaded… so drilling them in is the same direction as turning out the bolts.
However, they invariably snap off, and are expensive enough to not be worth attempting.
Instead… throw the spindle away.
In a tight corner, there are BMX cranksets on Amazon that are unbranded Chinese mass production sets. They are cheap. I’ve got by with a couple of sets of those on different builds over the years and they are okay. Good enough. They probably wont handle heavy duty work but if you’re just cruising this thing and doing bunnyhops, they might be your best bet short term while you save up for decent cranks.
Paint…
Long process to do a decent job. People just throw rattle can paint on them and make do with that.
Strip entirely – remove bb bearings and all all other components.
Degrease frame with white spirits
Rub down with 1200 grit wet and dry (wet)
Key surface with grey scotchbrite pads
Degrease again
Mask off bearing housings (bb and headset)
Just have at it with rattle cans. It’s way too long and complicated to try and do it ‘properly’
Mission makes a whole chromoky crakset for $30.