Saw a shop in Portland handle a stripped pedal thread with a helicoil kit

Was visiting a friend's shop out there last spring. They had a customer bring in a carbon frame with a totally wrecked left pedal thread. The crank arm was aluminum, the frame was fine, but the threads were gone. Instead of writing off the crank, the head mechanic pulled out a Time-Sert kit. Drilled it out, tapped for the insert, used the special installation tool. Whole job took maybe 45 minutes. Customer paid for the repair, not a new crank. I'd always just replaced the arm before. Now I keep a kit on my truck. Anyone else switched to thread inserts for this kind of damage?

2 comments

2 Comments

cameron_chen15d ago

Why didn't I know this sooner?

charlesanderson15d ago

Man, I felt the same way. I threw out a perfectly good crank last year over stripped threads. Could have fixed it for twenty bucks in parts instead of buying a whole new one. Live and learn, I guess.