Removing stuck or seized seatpost?

Had to do this stuck seatpost malarkey a couple times lately but it’s been successful without damaging the frame.

The other week I had a stuck stem, drilled a big hole through the middle and sliced some slots in the edges with an electric saw, stopping before it broke through to the steel and chiselled them out with an old screwdriver. Took ages and was a massive pain but got it done. Only thing I would say is if you use an electric saw is that it can hammer the remaining part further down so leave an edge if you can do that doesn’t happen. I cut it flush to the top of the steerer which was a mistake in retrospect.

Yesterday I had a seatpost stuck with about 3” in the frame. 1” diameter post which is 25.4mm.

Used a 25mm drill bit to drill it out. It was stuck hard to the very end, see the pics below for before and after. Had to keep it dead straight so it didn’t cut in to the frame.

This also took ages, about hour and half.
With the stem I drilled a 16mm hole straight through with no issues. With the seatpost it was getting very hot very quickly and heating the drill up very fast. Presumably due to the bigger size. Had to use lots of cutting oil and water on the frame to keep it cool and cut with the drill in a few half second bursts pulling out the drill to get the dwarf out and spray oil in. It got the seat post out and since it was so far extended out of the frame there was about 12” of remaining seat post left to use.

If I was to do again I would wrap a wet towel around the frame to help with drawing the heat out.

Big drill bits can be bought from toolstation for under a tenner and use on a regular drill chuck.

Use a low speed low torque setting as the drill can bind up quite easily. Use lots of oil to help cutting and keeping heat down.

Both of these were pretty much welded in the frame so very much a last resort.

Hope that’s some help.

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