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Just had a weird bottom bracket creak that turned out to be the chainring bolts
I was tuning up a customer's gravel bike last week, a pretty new carbon frame model, and it had this awful creak with every pedal stroke. I figured it was the usual suspect, the bottom bracket, so I pulled the crankset and checked the BB threads and cups. Everything was clean and torqued right. I was about to put it back together when I decided to check the chainring bolts on a hunch. Sure enough, three of the five were just a bit loose, maybe only 2 Nm when they should be at 8. Tightened them up, put the cranks back on, and the creak was totally gone. It's funny how a sound from the middle of the bike can trick you into thinking it's the BB. I've been doing this for a few years and still get fooled sometimes. Has anyone else had a chainring bolt creak mimic a bottom bracket issue that clearly?
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victorb5118d agoTop Commenter
Only 2 Nm on those bolts? That's crazy loose!
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craig.tyler18d ago
Had the same reaction when I first saw that spec. I just used a small torque wrench set to the lowest setting and it felt wrong, but it held. The manual was right, some of those small fasteners don't need much.
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