How to Replace Pedal Pins and Remove Stuck Pins

When to replace pedal pins

Replace pedal pins when they’re bent, broken, worn smooth or missing. Grip comes from the pin tips biting into your sole, so a pedal with tired pins feels slippery long before it looks worn out.

Check for:

• Bent pins: a pin bent by a rock strike binds in its thread and gets harder to remove the longer you leave it.
• Sheared pins: a stub flush with the platform gives no grip, and it’s easiest to remove before it corrodes in.
• Rounded tips: sharp, square edges grip; domed, polished ones don’t.
• Loose or missing pins: a loose pin wears the thread in the body; a missing one leaves an open hole for grit.
• Rounded tool fittings: if the hex or Torx socket is chewed, swap the pin now, while it still turns.

Swapping pins is also how you change grip: new shoes, a different riding style, or a commute in office shoes may call for a different height.

Top-loading vs back-loading pins: how to tell

Look at the top of a pin, then turn the pedal over. Where the tool fitting is tells you which way the pin comes out.

Pin style	How to spot it	How it comes out	Trade-off
Top-loading	Hex or Torx socket in the top of the pin	Unscrews from the platform side	Easy to reach, but a rock strike can bend the pin or wreck its socket
Back-loading	Plain or pointed top; fitting on the underside	Unscrews from below	The fitting is protected, so even a smashed pin comes out
Pin and nut	A nut on the underside of each pin	Hold the nut, turn the pin (or the reverse)	The nut stops pins backing out
Cast-in or molded	Pins are part of the body	Can’t be replaced	Grip fades as they wear

Many pedals mix styles. The DMR V8 Classic, for example, has four replaceable corner pins per side and six cast into the body. Only the corner pins can be swapped, so once the cast pins wear smooth, that pedal’s grip can’t be fully restored.

Tools and parts you need

• The maker’s replacement pins. Thread, length and head vary between brands and models; order by your pedal’s name from our pedal pins guide.
• A hex key or bit of the exact size. Sizes differ by brand. Wolf Tooth’s Waveform pins take a 3 mm hex, for example. A fresh, good-quality key or a hex bit in a small ratchet grips far better than a worn L-key.
• A pick or old spoke to clear dirt out of the sockets.
• Penetrating oil, a small hammer and Torx bits for seized or rounded pins.
• Locking pliers and, for the worst cases, a small screw extractor set and a hacksaw blade or rotary tool.
• Thread locker or grease, depending on whether your pins loosen or seize.
• Gloves. Worn pins are sharp enough to cut.

How to replace pedal pins, step by step

You can work with the pedal on the bike (the crank gives you something to brace against) or off the bike with the body held in a soft-jawed vise.

1. Clean the fitting. Pick every bit of dirt out of the pin’s socket so the tool seats fully. A half-seated key is how pins get rounded.
2. Hold the pedal body still. It spins on its bearings, so grip it with your free hand or clamp it.
3. Seat the tool fully and push in while you turn, so it can’t cam out.
4. Unscrew the pin. Pins use ordinary threads: counterclockwise to loosen, viewed from the end you’re turning. Back-loading pins come out from underneath.
5. Clean the hole. Brush out grit and old thread locker, and look at the threads. Torn or flattened threads won’t hold a new pin.
6. Prep the new pin. A drop of medium thread locker if your pins tend to back out, or a smear of grease or anti-seize if they tend to seize.
7. Start it by hand for the first few turns to make sure it isn’t cross-threaded.
8. Snug it down. Stop at snug in nylon or composite bodies; the threads strip easily.
9. Match the heights. Count turns or compare pin heights by eye so both pedals feel the same.
10. Recheck after the first ride and nip up anything that has moved.

How to remove a stuck or stripped pedal pin

Work up this list and stop at the first step that works. Patience saves the pedal body; force usually ruins it.

Seized, but the head is intact

Soak the pin with penetrating oil from both sides of the body and wait, ideally overnight. Clean the socket, seat a fresh bit, give its end a light tap with a hammer to seat it fully, then turn slowly with steady pressure.

Rounded hex socket

Tap a Torx bit one size larger than the hex into the socket so its points cut into the walls, then turn slowly. On a back-loading pin, ignore the top and work on the protected fitting underneath.

Bent pin

If the pin is bent but standing proud, grip the shaft below the bend with locking pliers and unscrew it. If it’s bent so badly that it binds, cut the bent part off first.

Head sheared off: cut and back out

1. Cut a slot. If any of the pin stands above the platform, cut a straight slot across it with a hacksaw blade or rotary tool and turn it out with a flat screwdriver.
2. Work from below. If the hole runs right through the body and the pin’s tip shows underneath, grip the tip with locking pliers or a hex key and back the pin out. A headless set-screw pin can also be driven on through and out the bottom, which avoids dragging damaged thread back through the hole.
3. Use an extractor. For a pin snapped flush in a blind hole, center-punch it, drill a small pilot hole and use a small left-hand screw extractor. Go gently: a snapped extractor is hardened and much harder to remove than the pin.

Last resort

If the pin won’t come out, a workshop can drill it out and re-tap the hole, or fit a thread insert. On a composite pedal, or if several holes are affected, new pedals usually make more sense.

Avoid heat on composite pedals: it melts the body around the pin and cooks the bearing seals.

Thread locker, grease or anti-seize?

Choose by how your pins fail. Never put thread locker and grease on the same pin.

Your problem	Use	Why
Pins back out and get lost	Medium-strength (removable) thread locker	Holds against vibration but still unscrews with a hand tool
Pins seize from corrosion	Grease or anti-seize	Keeps water out of the threads so pins come out next time
Composite or nylon body	Grease, or a thread locker labeled safe for plastics	Some thread lockers can harm certain plastics
Pin-and-nut design	Usually nothing extra	The nut already locks the pin

High-strength thread locker is for parts that never come apart. Pins are a wear item, so don’t use it.

Tuning pin height

Pin height is how far each pin stands above the platform. Taller pins bite harder; shorter pins let you shift your foot and hurt less when you slip.

• Washers under the pin raise or lower it on pedals designed for it; Hope’s F22 adjusts its hex pins this way.
• Different pin lengths are the other route. Some makers sell short and long pins for the same pedal.
• Tall at the edges, shorter in the middle gives a cupped feel that holds the sole without making foot changes hard.
• Keep enough thread in the body. A pin wound out to its last few threads strips the hole and snaps more easily.
• Watch the underside. A pin that pokes out of the bottom of the body catches on rocks and can strip its own thread.

When to replace the pedals instead

Sometimes the pins are telling you the pedal is done. Replace the pedals if:

• several pin holes are stripped, or the composite around them is chewed;
• the body is cracked or missing chunks around the pin bosses;
• the pins are cast in or molded and worn smooth, with no replaceable pins to make up for them;
• the bearings are worn out too, and the maker doesn’t sell parts for your model.

If you’re replacing, our flat pedals guide lists current models with replaceable pins, and DMR still sells spares for both V8 versions. If the bearings are still worth saving, see how to service pedal bearings.