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Debate: Grease on threads or not on crank bolts?
Last month at the shop in Denver, I had two mechanics arguing about whether to grease crank bolts before torquing them down. One guy said grease prevents creaking and makes removal easier later. The other said grease changes the torque reading and can cause the bolt to loosen over time. I've been doing it dry for 5 years with no issues, but my buddy swears by grease. What do you all do on your builds?
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mary77620d ago
Oh man, that debate is a classic! I feel you on this one because I've been on both sides and it's confusing. I honestly used to do dry for years too and thought it was fine until I had a crank bolt seize up on an old build. That was a nightmare to get off, seriously took me like two hours with a breaker bar and some penetrating oil lol. Now I always do a tiny bit of anti-seize or grease, just a thin film on the threads. I know some guys worry about torque readings but I always just back off the torque spec a little bit to account for the lube, like subtract maybe 10-15% from the number. Way less chance of it creaking or getting stuck down the road, in my experience at least.
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the_lee19d ago
Honestly, I read somewhere that Shimano actually recommends greasing those crank bolts, which made me feel less guilty about doing it. @mary776, your trick of subtracting 10-15% from the torque sounds like a solid rule of thumb I might borrow for my next build. Ngl, I still see guys online swearing by dry threads, but after fighting a seized bolt once, I'm never going back.
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the_dylan19d ago
Yeah I'm with you on this one honestly. I used to be all about dry threads just because that's how the old timers taught me and I figured they knew best. But after I had a pedal spindle basically weld itself to a crank arm on a brand new XT build, I did some digging and found out Shimano's own tech docs literally say to grease the damn bolts. That changed my whole view on it. Now I just put a light coat of whatever I have on hand and it's been smooth sailing. Felt dumb for fighting it for no reason for so long.
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