Bike noise, creak, click, creaks, clicks, clicking, pinging sound - help

With regards to clicking BB, just wanted to add that for a 2nd time, I've resolved mine by using a trimmed piece of aluminium drink can as a shim around the BB thread. Bend to fit, grease as usual, ease the spider on, job done. Tester will probably call me out on this, but it's worked every time so far..

what, you mean between bearing/cup or between actual BB shell and BB? I've heard of the clicky-UT problem, and of folk using an extra wavy washer or buying shim kits, but the thing that's fucking me off is that it's just appeared out of nowhere and I don't see why : /

^ No, not around the bearings or cups. The BB taper (that sticks out); the shim goes around that, just makes a more snug fit for the crank arm/spider.

http://images.esellerpro.com/2375/I/827/501/30317_1_Shimano_DeoreLXInnenlager4-KantBB-UN55Modell2012.JPG

Monsieur has clearly not 'Ultratorqued'

Edit: I guess that throws my technique out the window then.

lube all the threads!

About 1 week ago my front wheel (I think) appeared to develop an annoying creaking noise mainly when standing on the pedals and leaning on the bars eg climbing hills, starting off at lights. It sounds a bit like the spokes pinging as they bed in, if not stress releaved enough when building the wheel.

The wheel has 28 spokes (DT Champion 2mm I think) and these are radially laced to Mavic Open Pro rim and an unbranded hub. The cartridge bearings appear to still be butter smooth. I've checked the rim and hub shells for cracking - none evident. The wheel still runs true with an average spoke tension reading of 24.7 on the non-drive side and 25.4 on the drive side (both measured on the Park Tool gauge).

I've also checked that the SKS mudguard is not creaking at the fastenings and it appears to be silent. I'm now stuck for what to check to stop the annoying noise and it's driving me mad. It's not loud just annoying as I know it shouldn't be there and wasn't there.

Any suggestions other than ear defenders?

Try another quick release skewer or if you don't have one, try cleaning it and adding a touch more tension.

Check the spokes for loose ones. Any that are exceptionally loose, just give them a tiny tweak, like about 1/8th of a turn. That worked for me anyway

Ah, do they usually make a noise? It was lubed ca 3 months ago but I'll remove, clean and grease and in the meantime try a spare. I'll report back after tomorrow's commute in.

Cheers

Check the spokes for loose ones. Any that are exceptionally loose, just give them a tiny tweak, like about 1/8th of a turn. That worked for me anyway

I should have indicated in my original post when I checked the tension, which seems OK to me, I also checked for loose spokes. None were found and the tension difference between spokes was +/- 0.5 - 1 on the Park Tool gauge. Not bad after > 10000 miles.

The noise does sound like loose spokes though. Which is why I checked the tension and the wheel for cracks.

Are you sure it's the wheel?
Try borrowing 1 off a pal and go on a blast round the block.

Also, tried retorquing your stem bolts?

I'm not 100 % sure its the wheel. I'll torque the stem bolts before leaving for home. If its still there I'll swap the skewar, then the wheel. I think I should do it methodically otherwise I won't know what was causing the noise. That might annoy me as much as the noise.

Cheers

Torqued the stem bolts before leaving work. It was not them. On getting home I swapped the skewar - still no change.

If I rock the bike back and forth while leaning on the bars over the front wheel I can definitely hear it and it does sound like the wheel.

I'll swap to a different wheel to confirm later.

I assumed a radially laced wheel (not laced by me) would not ping as there are no crossing spokes. I thought the pinging was the spokes rubbing across each other and the spokes untwisting as the stress in the spokes was released. This wheel was built years ago.

Headset?

Nipples at rim?

One i read on here recently:

valve lock ring?

crack in handlebars/stem (scary shit)

...If I rock the bike back and forth while leaning on the bars over the front wheel I can definitely hear it and it does sound like the wheel...
Rule out possible sources of the problem from the largest, to the smallest.

Assuming you did the above whilst unseated, you've ruled out the back end: saddle, seatpost, cranks, bottom bracket etc etc.

If you swap-out the front wheel, then you can further narrow it down to either the front wheel assembly, or the headset, bars and stem.

After the front wheel, the cockpit is the easiest to eliminate; disassemble, clean, grease/assembly paste, reassemble using a torque wrench.

I've now swapped the wheel and the noise is gone. However I need this new wheel on my other bike.

So I assume the noise is the cartridge bearings which still appear to be really smooth or the spokes. Is there any easy way to tell?

I assume to identify the bearings in this unbranded hub I need to bash them out which will trash them. When I removed the bearings from my On-One fixed hub I had to poor boiling water on the hub shell around the bearings before wacking the axle bloody hard. I thought the hub was going to break, is this normal? I dread trying to remove these.

If the spokes what would you folks advise given the fact the tension seems OK.

Cheers all.

Rule out possible sources of the problem from the largest, to the smallest.

Assuming you did the above whilst unseated, you've ruled out the back end: saddle, seatpost, cranks, bottom bracket etc etc.

Indeed unseated for that very reason. I assume the noises absence with a different wheel locates its source on in the original wheel?

Sorry a page refresh has shown me the other replies. I have checked the valve lock ring, tried it tight and removed - no change.

The stem shows no visible damage, again the absence of the noise with a different wheel probably eliminates this.

I'm willing to believe its the nipples but the spokes are at a decent tension and I don't lube the nipples on my other wheels unless truing/building. How do I check/correct these.

Sorry this is now a long post.

Cheers

it's always the bottom bracket

^ True: my post above, edited.

Two things you could try:

• kill it with fire (preferably from above);
  
• shit on your bonnet.
  

c) buy new bike

it's always the bottom bracket

Even when the noise occurs when I lean on the bars over the wheel while off the bike? In this instance there is no weight on the bottom bracket, pedals, saddle etc.

I assume I can therefore rule out anything behind the headset. The fact it goes when the wheels changed locates the noise to the wheel, surely?

Today I could here it while seated pedalling very slowly with my kids on the way to school. Aarrggh it gets worse.