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What is the recommended torque for pedals? I have seen some say 30-35Nm but others say 10-12.
Also - do I want new pedals? My bike has some obviously cheap plastic pedals that it came with and I'm wondering if there is any benefit - purely from a comfort point of view - in getting some better ones.
The bike is a hardtail eMTB and I mainly ride just on cycleway type tracks, loose grit, a few muddy puddles etc.
Cheap plastic pedals will be slippery (and cheap plastic), Id wait till they wear out or you slip off one to many times. Then buy some flats with pins for grip, or just go SPD. Just make sure you put some grease on the spindles, then tighten them up a bit. Tight but not white knuckle tight. Dont fret about the torque, just grease them first.
Just tight enough that they are not going to unscrew. The motion of pedalling tightens them anyway.
If they have hex fitting in the inside of the spindle and a flat for a spanner on the pedal side of the crank I tend to install with a hex key, and remove with the spanner - That way they would never be too tight to remove.
35nm sounds way too high to me, that's pretty tight for a smallish allen key head. I just screw them in and give them a short turn / nip up after, the way the threads are they tighten themselves. Never had one come undone.
Thanks - done 'em up too tight then by the sounds of it. Took them off to apply a bit of grease and they were quite hard to undo so I wrenched them up good and proper. oops. Hope I haven't knacked anything
Probably be fine tbh, I wouldn't overly worry. If you leave them on for a few years they might be hard to get off.
Incidentally greasing threads actually affects the torque rating so be careful of that. (That's one reason why it's not recommended to grease threads on car wheel studs as a "wet" 120NM on a torque wrench is actually tighter than a dry 120NM).
If you use traditional Allen keys then the size (length) of the tool helps prevent over-torquing - provided you don’t have the hands of a gorilla.
Certainly accurate enough for pedals.
My Nukeproof Neutron EVO flats came with instructions to grease and torque to 40Nm. Which seems OTT for something that it shouldn't be possible to inadvertently loosen or undo.
Unless you do an awful lot of back-pedalling (Be careful Boris!)
I've undone them and done them up to 30nm using a newly acquired TW. Doesn't seem tight enough - well, compared to the 600nm I must have applied by hand anyway 😂
My torque wrench doesn't work on reverse thread, so I've no idea what my pedals are torqued to. Very much in the "not that tight" school though.
pedals self tighten. I do them up to finger tight plus a bit. this is why one side has a reverse thread. Processional forces act to turn the pedal axle in the crank. the reverse thread makes sure that this force tightens not loosens them
As has been said above, no point in tightening them down too much. Pedalling action keeps them tight.
I'm like TJ, finger tight and the slightest of nip on the spanner.
If you've ever had over tightened pedals you'll know they can be a real pain in the arse to remove.
That chap on the Park Tool videos says 32nm
skip to 4:55.
However when he is doing the first pedal he says 30lbs pressure on a 10" wrench then when he does the other pedal he says 3lbs.....
I did up my new pedals "a bit" tight (knowing they'd self-tighten) with an 8mm Allen key using some spray grease. Less than 10 miles in, one of them fell off. Only just managed to thread it back in (damaged thread), tightened with multi tool (only just about reached through), and they held for more than they originally did, until I did some proper tightening at home.
The pedals, being new, are quite tight - I wonder if this affects the self-tightening?
Quite easy to cross thread alloy threaded cranks. The ones with steel inserts are much better IMO. Had to fit a helicoil before in a Shimano LX crank arm.
Like with most fasteners, I do it up until I feel that it's getting tight then add a quarter turn.
I'd recommend periodically removing the pedals, cleaning, regreasing and reinstalling.
So I have just bought some Shimano pedals and it says 10nm on the pedal. 👍
35nm is the torque for oneup alloy, shimano flat pedals and Hope pedals, the self tightening pedals is total BS, I've had pedals come loose on the driveside so now tighten mine to 30nm greased with digutal torque wrench, Shimano actually says 35 to 55, unite pedals 35 to 40nm. Trust whatever the instructions say.
See how tight you can go with an allen key then measure the torque with the wrench, if you need a extension on allen key to reach 30nm just replicate the same length extension for the other pedal.
Well now - there's a thing. Glad I checked the dealer manual... 35-55nm 😲 Thanks @greeny30
I've greased them with anti-seize and done them up to 35nm..
10Nm is the torque for the axel itself - bit confusing.
whats all this self tightening nonsense, some kind if internet witchcraft??? they are threaded differently on each side so that if they seize, they both UNSCREW with the pedalling rotation, same as BB's they unscrew with the rotation of the crank spindle if they seize solid. surefire way of wrecking your cranks is to not do them up properly.
grease them, tighten them up and then give them a tweak for luck and you'll be good.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_pedal
The right-side (usually the drive-side) pedal spindle is right-hand threaded, and the left-side (usually the non-drive-side) pedal spindle is left-hand (reverse) threaded to help prevent it from becoming loose by an effect called precession.Although the left pedal turns clockwise on its bearing relative to the crank (and so would seem to tighten a right-hand thread), the force from the rider's foot presses the spindle against the crank thread at a point which rolls around clockwise with respect to the crank, thus slowly pulling the outside of the pedal spindle anticlockwise (counterclockwise) because of friction, and thus would loosen a right-hand thread.
ah of course wikipedia... source of all truth.
so, put your crank horizontal, pedal forward, attach a spanner or allen key vertically (like your leg would be) and then holding the spanner or allen key, press down. pedal unscrews right? if your bearings are slightly worn or there is play, you'll get binding and the pedal will unscrew, not tighten, thats why loose pedals fall out... that precession nonsense only applies in a perfect world where bearings have no play. sounds like a physics experiment that applies only what it needs to get the answer.
What you say does make sense I have to say. I understand the way they screw on and I have rotated the crank in both directions whilst holding on to the axle so yeah I get the effect.
Maybe that the little bit of torque applied by the bearings is enough to potentially stop them undoing (assuming they are done up correctly in the first place), a bit like threadlock, but not enough to tighten them so it's just an added bonus.
The example that they have been this way since Penny Farthings and were designed like that so that in the event of a pedal seizing it did not launch you off the bike, let's face it, from a great height in the case of a Penny Farthing, seems to make sense. Given that bearing tech in those days probably meant that a seized bearing was commonplace and no helmets etc will have added to the danger, it seems sensible that pedals unscrewed if bearings seized. However, whilst that seems sensible it's only any good if the pedal will actually unscrew and isn't itself seized...
I had always assumed actually that it was to stop them undoing, but having now done a bit of Googling as result of differing opinions here, it seems that both reasons might apply.
It does seem to make sense though that pedals are:
A) Regularly re-greased so that they do in fact unscrew if the bearings seize and
B) Checked regularly that they are not loose.
Hey ho, as long they don't fall off that's the main thing (although the technical reasons are interesting). I will be keeping an eye on them though..
Can confirm the self tightening/not loosening is a thing.
1st time I build up a bike with an EBB, I had the EBB insert out (a Phil Woods one, they're pretty, you've got to have a look!), hand threaded the square taper BB into the insert, put the insert in the bike and nipped up without checking which way round it was.
Looked down after 10 miles to see 10mm of thread out of each side of the BB shell. Little bit of head scratching to figure out what I'd done. One of those mistakes you only need to make once!
i think you summed up this whole debate with this, best advice in all honesty, no matter which is the correct answer, lol:
It does seem to make sense though that pedals are:
A) Regularly re-greased so that they do in fact unscrew if the bearings seize and
B) Checked regularly that they are not loose.
If you've got silver axles use a marker pen at the allen key end of the axle at 6 or 12 o'clock so at a glance you can see any movement or some bright paint if the axles are black.
I'll pull the mechanical engineer card and chime in with a couple of comments:
A) any self tightening phenomenon is not significant compared to the effects of vibrations, impacts and multi directional forces the occur during riding.
B) 35nm is not that much when we look at the pedal thread size, which is equivalent to something like a M12
C) any newly installed pedal should be re tightened after a ride around the block