Folks,

Emergency call from a friend that has a bit of metal corrosion between
the stem and frame of a bike - It's well and truely immovably stuck :-)

Things tried include Heat, Coke & WD-40. Not tried is an Angle Grinder,
Plusgas or Tomato Ketchup.

Any ideas?

--
Adrian C

On Thu, 30 Dec 2010 20:56:55 +0000, Adrian C wrote:

Any ideas?

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/stuck-seatposts.html


Thomas Prufer

"Thomas Prufer" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 30 Dec 2010 20:56:55 +0000, Adrian C wrote:

Any ideas?

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/stuck-seatposts.html


Thomas Prufer

I had to use the hacksaw-blade-from-the-inside method once - it does work in
the end.

In article ,
Adrian C wrote:
Folks,

Emergency call from a friend that has a bit of metal corrosion between
the stem and frame of a bike - It's well and truely immovably stuck :-)

Things tried include Heat, Coke & WD-40. Not tried is an Angle Grinder,
Plusgas or Tomato Ketchup.

Any ideas?

I recently had a sheared off bolt on the ally SD1 engine. Only thing that
did shift it was welding on a nut so the remains of the thread got cherry
red with the heat. It then came out easily. So heat does work - but you'll
need a lot of it. Likely so much you'd damage any paint finish. Otherwise
it will be down to drilling it out.

--
*Two wrongs are only the beginning *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article , Thomas Prufer wrote:
On Thu, 30 Dec 2010 20:56:55 +0000, Adrian C wrote:

Any ideas?

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/stuck-seatposts.html

Also http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/stuck-stem.html (but most of the
advice on seatposts is equally applicable to stems). With a stem you
can (with many forks) hit it from underneath, which you can't with a
seatpost (except with a Y-frame).

On 04/01/2011 15:24, alans-computer.local wrote:
I had that problem so I cycled for months without the steerer bolt and
eventually the steering worked loose from the fork.

.... but hopefully not you as well? :-)

Thanks all.

Yup, I did figure on some way of attaching my Bosch PMF-180 multi-tool
and giving it a good old shake, but my friend had other chemical ideas....

.... and succeeded! :-)

His was the repeated application of a very strong and hot caustic soda
water solution, poured in the column and left to soak and drained out. A
pretty dangerous activity.... kids don't try this at home yada yada...

According to him an awful lot of caustic soda was required to dissolve
the aluminum enough to free it, as the stem had managed to
chemically-bond to the steel fork steerer tube all the way down.

But thankfully no damage to the frame (apart from some of the paintwork)
appears to have occurred during the three days of this treatment. These
stem / tube things definitely need a good intercoating of grease ...

--
Adrian C