Thorn Mercury Mk3 bottom bracket click or knock - any solutions?

[UKTony]

simply because their recent advice on a little-used Mercury on their website said that for an equivalent new the wait time woukd be about 18 months.

Well spotted! 🙂

[Matt2matt2002]

If that's a question for me, Matt, I went into a bicycle shop and asked for a crank pulling tool and a bottom bracket extraction tool.

The crank puller has an external thread which matches an internal thread on each crank arm. It also has an internal thread which carries a matching hreaded slug. You screw the tool into the crank arm, then wind in the slug. The slug presses on the outer face of the crankshaft and pushes the arm off its taper.

Yes, it was & thanks for the reply.

I think I'll leave it to  LBS given my limited mechanical abilities.

Best

Matt

[RobertW]

I'm glad the thread was helpful, Robert.

You experience makes me wonder whether there is a systemic issue in the assembly process at Thorn. It sounds uncannily similar to mine.

How did you manage to purchase a Mk 2 Mercury new this year?

Apologies for delayed reply, I don't come here very often.  The Mk 2 was 'old stock' with a bit of discount - there was no stock in Mk 3 in my required 610L size and at best a very long wait before they had new frames.  The Stealth Black paint job has seemed very resilient so far.

The Thorn cranks came of the square taper BB quite easily with a Park CCP-2 tool.  The BB just needed a standard splined tool to fit and a big spanner (plus remembering which way each cup is threaded).  To put it back together just needed an additional long-handled 8mm allen key. I did not touch the EBB.

Probably done 200 miles since this fix and all still seems nice and 'clonk' free.

Robert