shimano fc-c103 bike arm crank

[deathtokoalas]

i can't ask them now because they all have alzheimer's, but it is a reasonable guess that the bicycle was purchased or built by her second husband for one of his teenaged children and then sat in an apartment storage for 30 years when he immediately grew out of it and bought a car instead. this is/was a wealthy italian family. it may have been a very expensive bicycle when it was built. but, it's still very old and cannot have recent anything for that reason. the few numbers i can find are on pieces that are long out of print.

 

[alicat]

i can't ask them now because they all have alzheimer's, but it is a reasonable guess that the bicycle was purchased or built by her second husband for one of his teenaged children and then sat in an apartment storage for 30 years when he immediately grew out of it and bought a car instead. this is/was a wealthy italian family. it may have been a very expensive bicycle when it was built. but, it's still very old and cannot have recent anything for that reason. the few numbers i can find are on pieces that are long out of print.

What's that got to do with anything?

Hint to the OP - matches are cheaper to burn than goodwill.

 

[Fastpedaller]

Hmm - all the posters have tried their best. as stated it is a square taper cartridge bottom bracket, nothing to do with bayliss wiley. it's amazing the damage folk can do to their bikes when they have no idea and their idea of maintenance is a hammer. I helped someone recently whose neighbour had put a nice alloy-framed mountain bike in the skip. the neighbour had said 'it's a rubbish bike - can't be fixed". Our friend took it out of the skip with permission from the neighbour. The bottom bracket (cup and caged balls) had play in it, and the neighbour had decided the best way to fix it was to tighten the bolt holding the R crank to the bb axle. He must have just gone tighter and tighter! It was mighty tight (did he use a 4ft tube on the socket?) and the bolt threads were stretched. Of course, even with a campag extractor the crank wouldn't come off the axle, and merely stripped the thread of the crank - I had to cut the crank off. The existing bb would have been ok, but I gave him a spare cartridge bb I had from a previous bike, and with a new crankset, my friend now has a bike as good as new.
I don't want to sound 'superior', but folk who don't know their pedals from their cranks should leave it to others who do.

 

[Fastpedaller]

How many people need to say it..... NOTHING HAS FALLEN OFF!

 

[deathtokoalas]

the corporate name on the bicycle is miele siena, which makes it italian-canadian (this is not the same as the old german miele bikes). many of the the parts are italian. that would likely date it the mid to late 80s, i believe.

 

[deathtokoalas]

At last we might see the way ahead after you shared this symptom "i can pull the system through the hole in the frame back and forth". And the exposed threads in OP image gave a hint. I surmise your LH 'cup' on the cartridge BB is loose. You need to remove the crank bolt, extract the crank (using a crank puller tool) see my first post (#4)!!, and then you'll have access to the BB. I expect you'll be able to waggle the spindle end. You'll need a 20-spline tool to tighten it. Would be worth removing (only that end), cleaning, and applying some threadlocker (new ones come with that on already) and screw back in 40Nm. Refit the crank. And ride on. I am elaborating on what @T4tomo has already advised. This may be all that's 'wrong'.

listen, i can be overwhelmingly belligerent on forums. i'm not currently being aggressive because i know this is not my expertise.

i just want you to clarify this comment.

that spline tool is not going to work in this system because it's not the right end. i'm going to have to tighten it with the 14 mm ratchet, either by hand or with a power tool, and i may indeed bring it in just for that reason. however, what you're saying is this:

- my system has a closed cartridge
- there is a locking screw on the outside of the closed cartridge
- that locking screw is damaged, broken or perhaps even eroded and fell off. there's no sign of it remaining on the bike.

would you agree that this damaged locking screw that you propose is the cause of the movement in the spindle is functionally the same as a locking ring in an open cartridge system?

i'm really not trying to "win". as noted, i can be exceedingly belligerent, and i'm avoiding that. i'm trying to understand what has broken.

 

[deathtokoalas]

Hmm - all the posters have tried their best. as stated it is a square taper cartridge bottom bracket, nothing to do with bayliss wiley. it's amazing the damage folk can do to their bikes when they have no idea and their idea of maintenance is a hammer. I helped someone recently whose neighbour had put a nice alloy-framed mountain bike in the skip. the neighbour had said 'it's a rubbish bike - can't be fixed". Our friend took it out of the skip with permission from the neighbour. The bottom bracket (cup and caged balls) had play in it, and the neighbour had decided the best way to fix it was to tighten the bolt holding the R crank to the bb axle. He must have just gone tighter and tighter! It was mighty tight (did he use a 4ft tube on the socket?) and the bolt threads were stretched. Of course, even with a campag extractor the crank wouldn't come off the axle, and merely stripped the thread of the crank - I had to cut the crank off. The existing bb would have been ok, but I gave him a spare cartridge bb I had from a previous bike, and with a new crankset, my friend now has a bike as good as new.
I don't want to sound 'superior', but folk who don't know their pedals from their cranks should leave it to others who do.

then, how do people learn how to fix things?

that kind of superior attitude is not helpful and i'm not interested in people that want to be superior. that's exactly how advanced civilizations collapse - a division of labour restricts the flow of knowledge, and it becomes lost when the specialists die.

i came here to ask questions in an attempt to understand how the system works before i dismantled it. the answers provided to me are not correct and will not help me fix my bicycle, but continuing a discourse may help me arrive at a correct answer and a useful tactic.

 

[deathtokoalas]

by the end of the roman empire, they'd forgotten how to operate their own aqueducts. we don't want to end up watering the crops with gatorade; we need to value the concept of learning.

 

[Ian H]

listen, i can be overwhelmingly belligerent on forums. i'm not currently being aggressive because i know this is not my expertise.

i just want you to clarify this comment.

that spline tool is not going to work in this system because it's not the right end. i'm going to have to tighten it with the 14 mm ratchet, either by hand or with a power tool, and i may indeed bring it in just for that reason. however, what you're saying is this:

- my system has a closed cartridge
- there is a locking screw on the outside of the closed cartridge
- that locking screw is damaged, broken or perhaps even eroded and fell off. there's no sign of it remaining on the bike.

would you agree that this damaged locking screw that you propose is the cause of the movement in the spindle is functionally the same as a locking ring in an open cartridge system?

i'm really not trying to "win". as noted, i can be exceedingly belligerent, and i'm avoiding that. i'm trying to understand what has broken.

Your 14mm bolt only tightens the crank on to the spindle. It doesn't adjust the bottom bracket bearings. Over-tightening will simply wreck the crank.

 

[deathtokoalas]

Your 14mm bolt only tightens the crank on to the spindle. It doesn't adjust the bottom bracket bearings. Over-tightening will simply wreck the crank.

ok. so, that tool itself might not be exactly right, but you're suggesting that, once i get the arm off with a crank puller, i will need another tool to retighten what you claim is a closed bearing system that is loose, and that, if i'm lucky, merely tightening the system may be enough to save the bracket without replacing it.

let me ask you this, then - suppose you are wrong and that that does not work and i have to replace the system. is tightening a closed bearing system a normal part of replacing a bottom bracket, regardless?

 

[deathtokoalas]

what i'm asking is if you expect that system to be "tight" on purchase, or if it comes loose and requires tightening on installation.

 

[Ian H]

ok. so, that tool itself might not be exactly right, but you're suggesting that, once i get the arm off with a crank puller, i will need another tool to retighten what you claim is a closed bearing system that is loose, and that, if i'm lucky, merely tightening the system may be enough to save the bracket without replacing it.

let me ask you this, then - suppose you are wrong and that that does not work and i have to replace the system. is tightening a closed bearing system a normal part of replacing a bottom bracket, regardless?

Jesus! Your bottom bracket looks as though it's a sealed cartridge kind, from the less-than informative photos you have posted. In which case you replace it if it's worn out. It may possibly be a traditional loose bearing kind which, assuming it isn't worn out, can be adjusted.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

OK one last try....
View attachment 669432

there is no lockring meant to go on this thread. that is the equivalent of this bit:
View attachment 669433
some of them have a finished edge, some just have extra threaded length, but it is supposed to look like that.

it may be slack if the whole BB unit is shifting within the shell, but the crank is firmly attached to the bb axle.

you need to remove the crank (presumably with a crank extractor, but the info pictures given aren't conclusive) and then tighten it with the correct splined tool.

a bit of politeness costs nothing.

I’d go with this, the end cap (green arrow) is missing on non drive side shown. If you haven’t got the end cap get a replacement bottom bracket and fit that. If it’s beyond you take it to a shop for them to do.

 

[Fastpedaller]

In pursuit of passing on knowledge......
The pedal are the flat things for your feet to go on.
The pedals are attached to the cranks
The cranks are attached to the bottom bracket assembly, which is either an axle with bearings and loose cups or (it would appear on your bike) a cartridge assembly.
They attach by way of a bolt through each cranks into the bottom bracket axle, using a 14mm socket is often the way to remove the bolts.
A puller is needed to remove the cranks from the bottom bracket axle after the bolts have been removed. Previous (unnecessary and brutal) tightening of said bolts in an attempt to rectify play(movement) of the bottom bracket axle within its bearings may well result in being unable to remove the cranks without destroying them (as the example in my note above)

 

[deathtokoalas]

to be clear, when i talked about retightening the bolt, i meant in the process of reassembling the crank arm. when i stated that the bolt was not loose, what i meant was that i couldn't unscrew it.

as it is, i do not expect that i would have the upper body strength required to tighten a bolt of this nature enough to damage it. i have been on testosterone suppressors for 20 years and no longer have testicles at all. i could barely get it off in the first place. i have not attempted to do that and would not attempt to that without understanding how it works, first.