Tip for addressing crankarm play on a Shimano drive system

[RickBullotta]

Wanted to share a solution that worked for me. The amount of play wasn't huge, but I wanted to see if I could address it by checking to see if things were tight.

Basically, I just removed the crankarms and the lockring/chainring (don't forget that this is reverse threaded), cleaned everything up, applied grease to all splined mating surfaces, tightened things up firmly (including the plastic crankarm fixing bolts - snug them up with the tool and a pair of pliers for a little extra leverage), then properly tightened the crankarm bolts (alternating back and forth).

After those steps, negligible crankarm movement!

 

[electricbogaloo]

That's probably due to the grease but if there ist play somewhere it will reappear.

 

[RickBullotta]

That's probably due to the grease but if there ist play somewhere it will reappear.

I'm pretty sure it is due to a little extra effort on the crankarm fixing bolts (not the crankarm bolts, but the plastic bolts that tension the crankarm). Either way, I'm liking it!