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Annoying creaking FSA Afterburner crankset on FlyTeam 29er

2406 Views 3 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  GroceryBagHead, 
G
So after 2 months and about 1000km my bike started to creak like hell every time I apply any pressure on the left crank arm. At first I thought that was my half-destroyed eggbeaters but after swapping them creaking didn't stop. It's not the crank arm that is loose. I made sure it was re-tightened. Plus loose crank arms make more of a clicking sound. The sound I hear reminds me of busted ball bearings. That's why I suspected a pedal in the beginning, but I'm no ball-bearings expert.

I don't want to say that FSA cranks are terrible, because I had V-Drive MegaExo cranks for 4 years and they worked ok enough. But hell, this is annoying.

Anybody else with this problem? Anything I can do to fix it? It drives me nuts.
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R
Sounds like a loose bottom bracket to me, did you try tightening it?
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L
I had a set of Afterburner cranks. Besides being a bit heavy they are a nice crankset. Creaks can come from any metal on metal interface. To get rid of creaks take everything apart, including taking off the chainrings. Clean any dirt and grime off. Then lubricate all metal on metal interfaces and threads. Reassemble making sure to properly tighten the bottom bracket cups and tighten the cranks to the proper torque. Don't forget to lube the pedal threads also.
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G
Well, what do you know. It wasn't the BB. It was a tiny amount of black residue on the spindle. After dousing it with wd40 and wiping everything clean sound disappeared. At least I went to work and back with no creaking. Hopefully this will last.

I think I need to clean drivetrain anyway. Last time it was like 400km ago.
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