OT: Help with an obnoxious bike click.

[Zak Jarvis]

I'm hoping someone on the list has A) the time and B) the ability to help me find the cause of an obnoxious click.

More details.

The click varies a fair bit. Sometimes it's soft, sometimes it's louder.

It only happens when I torque the left pedal, and for a while it was only once per-stroke, now it seems to be multiple, fainter clicks more often.

Sometimes it gets better if I stand up and hammer, sometimes it gets worse.

I have:

(carefully -- it's a carbon frame) tightened every hex bolt I could find
tightened the pedals
tightened both quick release skewers
checked the teeny screws hidden inside the back dropout

And when I say tightened, I mean checked to see if anything was loose and nothing was.

My suspicion is that it's a damaged/missing bearing in the bottom bracket, but when it comes to bikes I'm waaaaaay more a user than a tech. The shop that built the bike for me in SoCal was super helpful with any and all tech stuff, but that's a bit of a commute to get back to now.

Any help would be appreciated, and appreciation may or may not (depending on preference) take the form of beer.

[steve armijo]

hey Zak,

drop by the archives.

i'd start here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/sf2g/annoying$20sound/sf2g/0TINucMczF4/R9w7DG-pMUEJ

-s

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[Eyal Guthmann]

What kind of bottom bracket do you have. I had the same issue with a BB30 (though it will might be common to other press bottom brackets). You can temporary get rid of it by taking the crankset and BB apart, cleaning the BB and putting it back together. The only way I found to completely get rid of the issue is to switch to a non press BB

[Erik Waher]

I had a pretty loud creak in a carbon frame. I checked "everything" like you...

The source of the noise ended up coming from where the rear derailleur is bolted to the derailleur hanger. There is a spring in there designed to give the derailleur some float once installed. With a bit of force, you can compress the spring and allow a drop of oil into the void.

Most difficult creak I've had to solve yet.

ymmv

On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 8:17 PM, Zak Jarvis <voidm...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Zak Jarvis]

Steve, Erik

Thanks! That's pretty close, but this is more of a click than a creak. There's a definite feeling of 'pop' when it happens rather than a squeaky-door kind of sound.

Eyal,

Good question! I didn't spec the bike out and I've never disassembled it. All I can do is look at it and google. From the outside I can see that it has an FSA BB386/30 adapter on the crankset, so I think it's using a BB386 in a BB30 housing (which is what my frame is spec'd for).

The more I read, the less comfortable I feel with tracking down a tool and opening it up myself.

[Nathan Dushman]

What sort of pedals? I had a click that was due to something in the pedal bearing, taking the pedal apart and re-greasing everything helped.

Nathan

[Mitchell Flax]

I've done the BB30 overhaul a couple of times when a crunching sound returns to my bike. It's always sounded and felt to me like pieces of dirt getting ground on the downstroke. I have no idea if that's actually what's happening, but every time I open it up, it's filthy in there. I used this instruction set to replace my bearings and found their suggestion to make a homemade bearing press worked great.

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Mitch Flax

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[Erik Waher]

Click sounds like a bearing or something that "spins"

Lul...is it a stuck link in your chain? That happens sometimes. You can google how to check for a stuck link, but basically you just run the chain over a sharp angle and see if something pops.

On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 9:54 PM, Nathan Dushman <n...@abtech.org> wrote:

What sort of pedals? I had a click that was due to something in the pedal bearing, taking the pedal apart and re-greasing everything helped.

Nathan

[scott :)]

Sounds like you have some creaking noises from something loose or not lubed well.  As with most things in life, lube is a good way to make things better, if not totally amazing.  Sometimes you may not be sure that you need lube, but damage is being done to the one you are riding, and it might not tell you how it feels immediately.  Sometimes the damage is so bad that the shaft is loose in pocket and it's time to trade up for either a bigger shaft or tighter pocket.  It sounds like in your case, you can tell lube is needed because some vocal complaining.  Remember, it's best to lube early to make the relationship smooth, rather that find out after the smitten period that you really needed some and the complaining begins.  An easy fix, in your case, is to get some WD40 and one by one spray each area where an object is inserted into an orifice*.  Remember to test mount and hard ride your mare or stallion between the lubing of each orifice and insertion location, because if you do not do this, and you go crazy with the lube** you may not find the location that actually needed the "quality lube"*** or shaft/pocket replacement.   So remember that lube is messy, but it's worth it, and to lube up in a place that can easily be cleaned after the party.  Additionally, be sure to clean any excess lube off of the exposed parts that didn't need it or it will get all over the place and people will question your true lube needs.  Lastly, be sure to use quality lube once you find the location which is having issues and let the good times roll.

* cranks/frame, seat post/frame, seat/seatpost pedals/cranks etc.
** you can never have to much lube except for this example.
*** quality lube could be white lithium grease, but I am sure everyone will comment on what they think is better that this, but it works on for my needs.

On Wednesday, January 27, 2016 at 8:17:27 PM UTC-8, Zak Jarvis wrote:

[BikinHowd]

Try replacing the pedals with a new set... I had a weird clicking sound like you describe once, and I was thinking it was the bottom bracket also... a very good mechanic found it to be the pedal internals... which you can't fix by tightening to the crank arms... before you go to a lot of money on BB repairs I'd eliminate the pedals first...