Another clickety crank thread - problem vanished!

The mountainbike was making an annoying click-click-click noise, that
was steadily getting worse. It was definitely in phase with the turning
of the pedals/crank, so not chain or rear end.
Replaced Bottom bracket, cos there was play, and I could feel crunching
going on. Clicking problem still there! It was very metallic noise,
and I could feel it through the pedal when the left crank reached the
top position.
So decided to swap the roadbike and mountainbike pedals over, to try to
isolate the problem. The road pedals are brand new (ie about 15km on
them), and the mountainbike pedals probably have 150km on them tops, so
fairly sure they weren't the cause, although could be SPD cleat related.
But now the problem has totally gone away! So now I have 2 bikes that
are whisper quiet, and smooth as a baby's bottom, but look totally odd!
All the pedals and cranks were fully tightened (after replacing BB -
there was play in the old BB).

So any theories as to what the problem actually was, now that I've
inadvertently fixed it?

I was expecting it to be those strange STX-RC IG chainrings, but
apparently not. Speaking of which... anyone know if these are replacable
with standard 5-bolt compact 94/58mm bcd rings?

--
AndyM.

On 14/05/2006 18:02, Andy M said,

So any theories as to what the problem actually was, now that I've
inadvertently fixed it?

A few weeks ago, I fitted SPD pedals in place of traditional
clips/straps (and I *still* haven't fallen off!!). I had this
click-click noise, but thought it couldn't be the pedals 'cos they're
new, but I tightened them anyway. Chainset off, greased, on again -
click-click. Chainring bolts tightened - clickety-click.

It finally dawned - pedals off, washer fitted (not supplied with pedal),
threads greased - silence!!

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

Paul Boyd writes:

On 14/05/2006 18:02, Andy M said,

So any theories as to what the problem actually was, now that I've
inadvertently fixed it?

A few weeks ago, I fitted SPD pedals in place of traditional
clips/straps (and I *still* haven't fallen off!!). I had this
click-click noise, but thought it couldn't be the pedals 'cos they're
new, but I tightened them anyway. Chainset off, greased, on again -
click-click. Chainring bolts tightened - clickety-click.

It finally dawned - pedals off, washer fitted (not supplied with pedal),
threads greased - silence!!

Along similar lines, I solved a mysterious rubbing brake block some weeks
ago. I had fitted new blocks and a couple of days later I heard this
tsjk-tsjk-tsjk sound from the front wheel. So I thought I needed to
readjust the brakes a bit, but the odd thing was that I could see light
between the tyre and the block on both sides, and though the wheel has a
very slight wiggle it never touched the blocks. Quite a lot of faffing
later I realised that the tyre had a thin label on the side which had
become partly unstuck and was touching the brake blocks.

(lessons learned in the past: if you ignore a sound like that you suddenly
get a very loud bang some time later :-)

Roos