Mountain Bike Reviews Forum banner

Surly Karate Monkey Complete Build: Bottom Bracket Mr Whirly

5K views 10 replies 4 participants last post by  Justinbunyon 
#1 · (Edited)
Has anyone had issues with creaking or a loose Mr whirly bottom bracket?

Background on this question:

I got a new KM and the bottom bracket was super creaky. My LBS found that the non drive side flat bolt was missing (not sure why). LBS got a spare part from Surly's warranty dept

A month later there was terrible creaking back again, every pedal stroke produced a creak. Back to the LBS, they told me it was dirty this time and put some Phil Woodmans lube, and thought that would take care of it.

Earlier this month I went out for a ride and the entire crank came off my bike. There was no noticable looseness, the crank and that flat non drive side bolt. Hoofed it home in the cold.

LBS worked QBP/Surly who got a part (took them over a week - that's a different story) and replaced the defective part. QBP has remain pretty tight lipped on the quality of this bottom bracket or other issues that have been reported (if any). The LBS said there were about 2-3 more threads on the new non drive side (flat) bolt, and also changed the BB hub (to a new part). They're pretty confident this ought to do it. QBP Surly are very responsive, I chatted to a human to speak to about the issue.

Surly's position is ominous, for such a simple piece of machinery a SS bike it seems odd that a surly product would go bad without a recall. I realize even quality parts (no pun to QBP intended) can fail etc. It's also the 2nd most expensive part after the bike frame and took 3 trips to the LBS before it was deemed that the bolt wasn't right for the torque on an SS bike.

Additionally their blog makes no mention of this part (correct me if I am wrong)I'm curious if this is really the case or if others have had problems with the Mr whirlys or if I had an isolated issue (this may very well be the case)?

The 2010 KM build doesn't use Mr Whirlys, interesting, perhaps this part was never intended for SS use.

12/22/10 - Edits to grammatical errors and weird run on sentences.
 
See less See more
#3 ·
@telethor. It looks like the new KM complete's don't come with Mr. Whirly Surly Spec .

I think you should be ok with the TruVativ FireX. With that said on looking at the new complete builds they have a 4 bolt pattern on the chain ring. My previous custom build KM had a 4 pattern chain ring and I managed to bend the $50 surly chain ring. My LBS wrench said there was a lot of torque on the uphill pedaling. This was very much the case, that torque distributed on four little bolts is a lot. I weigh 130lbs. I'm not sure why SS bikes would even come with 4 bolts.



My 2006 Fisher Rig had not even a third of the problems my KM has.
 
#7 ·
I've got 2 bikes with Mr. Whirley cranksets and I haven't had any more or less difficulty with either of them then I have other cranksets. One set up as an SS the other a 1x9. The cranks on my steamroller started creaking and that told me something wasn't right. I took it apart, cleaned the gunk from between the crankarms and the spindle, checked the bolts on the spider and the chainring and put everything back together and the creak was gone.
 
#8 ·
@Justinbunyon Glad to hear things are working out well for you. I don't have the intimate knowledge or tools to take my BB or cranks apart.

Update to the above story, my drive side crank came loose in Nov 2011 and Surly agreed to send a complete warranty replacement. I may have just had a dud.

The bike stores seem greedy to sell me a new bike stating "there's a lot of pressure/torque on the cranks of a SS" implying that even an expensive part should be replaced each year. :skep: really?
 
#10 ·
Slowly awakening.

So the bike shop's aren't taking me on a ride (no pun intended) I really trust the said bike shop but can't help but feel the wrench is trained to sell me something.

It's possibly just hard to fathom how my road bike with x3 more miles than my MTB eats up less of my cash and works well. Then again MTB makes your heart race faster! I imagine MTB parts really do take significantly more of a beating than road/cross parts.
 
#11 ·
Well, if they actually came out and said you need to replace those after a year...sounds like they are just trying to take your money..that sucks. Surly products are nothing if not bulletproof. Maybe you got a lemon the first time around, normally you shouldn't have any problems for a long time. If anything, the only parts you'd need to replace would eventually be the bearings.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top