Cinelli stem help?

I am having a fucking nightmare with this shit.

My Steve Goff road bike has a black Cinelli XA which I absolutely hate, so I bought a silver replacement off El Diablo, which is a lovely 1R.

First problem. The XA just will not come out. I have loosened the bolt, hit the bolt, hit the stem, and applied force with a pair of steel handlebars and a mole wrench. This has resulted in a broken Cinelli XA that still shows no fucking sign of budging. What the hell do I have to do to get this ugly bitch out? Do I have to remove the headset? (A 90s Campagnolo steel job.)

Second problem is that the Silver 1R does not fit my bars. I thought all Cinellis were 26.4, but no, this cunt is a 26.0 and will never go onto the bars. Great. And to find that out I scratched the formerly pristine centre bit of the bars. fuck.

So I am now looking for a 26.4 Silver Cinelli 1R or XA stem, 10cm, and possibly another set of Campione Del Monde bars as long as the centre part is pristine.

Who can help with both problems?

search here and on google for stuck stem - plenty of solutions. none of them pretty.

not all cinelli stems are 26.4 - the newer ones (90s - present) are mostly 26.0.

and there are plenty of stems/bars in 26.4 up on ebay.

Right.
A new 1R stem with bars are on their way. At least I know they match!
The 26mm can go with my bullhorns.

The old XA has been sawn off and is merrily bubbling away in a fairly strong caustic soda solution.
It's bloody amazing - the thing is dissolving like an Aspro-clear tablet. Should have completely dissolved by the morning I reckon. It's giving off some pretty nasty gases though. including hydrogen :-)

Now then, what's the best type of grease for headsets?
And what's good for greasing the new stem?

happen to me mate, turn out CInelli stem can be a right bastard to fit, even if it the right size! the problem with the 1R is that there's no way to pry it open to push it in the bar, my 1R is currently sat on my old drop bar that has been hacked in half in attempt to try and pry it out and it is an 26.4 clamp one!

the Milano stem is usually your best bet, as you can able to wedge a screwdriver between the hole to pry it open a bit to make it a little easier to put the drop bar in

campagnolo special grease.

Or some form of lithium grease if you don't wipe your ass with pound notes.

If I have a 3T stem and want to replace it with a Cinelli quill, do I need to cut down there steerer tube?? If so this seems like a much bigger job than I had anicipated!

Sorry to drop my question onto this thread but its my first post and it won't let me start my own.

any help would be amazing.

If I have a 3T stem and want to replace it with a Cinelli quill, do I need to cut down there steerer tube?? If so this seems like a much bigger job than I had anicipated!

Sorry to drop my question onto this thread but its my first post and it won't let me start my own.

any help would be amazing.

No, I don't see a reason why you should cut down the steerer tube.
I thing the shaft is approx the same length. Cinelli is certainly not the longest (quill), so it doesn't bottom out on the reinforcement in the steerer tube.
Both quills will be 22.2 mm diameter.

Ah but thats the problem. The stem I'm taking off is not a quill....

As far as I know you can't replace an A-Head stem with a quill stem. Don't you need threaded 1 inch forks and a 1 inch headset?

Incidentally, the caustic soda did its thing, and completely dissolved the stuck stem. I now have a nice silver 1R in there. It makes a huge difference to the looks. And it's 10mm shorter, which makes the drops nicer to ride on.

I don't suppose drilling ally bars for internal cable routing would significantly weaken them?

OK, one more more stem question... The frame is a Holdsworth Laquelda which I'm guessing is pretty old. Surely this was originally set up for a quill and has been converted in some way?

Confused.

???

it's a ahead stem convertor, design to fit into the quill stem so you can use ahead stem on it.

Which means you can remove it and put a quill in there.

Ah, it doesn't look at all like that. Maybe it was always threadless aftr all?!

then the fork is probably not the original one that came with the bike.

netherless a picture would speak thousand..

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Huh, I don't remember Holdsworth having threadless fork since they closed up shop in the 70's, if the frame is indeed an original Holdsworths, then the fork are defintely aren't.

Netherless if you want a quill stem, you'd need to get the fork threaded, a new threaded headset, and of course, a quill stem.

or alternatively, find a classic looking stem, (like a Nitto stem for instance) and use them in your existing setup.

Yeh, they cant be the original forks.

thanks for your help edscoble.

Hi guys, I've been looking at getting a decent old cinelli stem to go on a pinarello treviso I'm building up. One thing that I can't seem to find much info on is this: what is the difference between the cinelli stems (1A/1R/XA etc)? Is there a performance difference, or is it just cosmetics or a fitting difference? Cheers!

Meant to post this in the Bikes & Bits category, please feel free to move it if it's a problem Mods.

Just looks.
This is a 1A. Classic looks, copied by everyone, probably the best at actually gripping bars.

This is an XA. Sleeker, more aero, still works fairly well, but those spacers often go missing.

The XE is similar but has a diagonal expander wedge rather than the conical one (compare with the 1R below it).

This is a 1R, the sleekest of the lot, but also functionally, probably the worst!

That's great, thanks for clearing that up Quinn!

Yeah, that's good!

I had a problem with a 1R, in fact. It won't grip well the bars (diameter to match that stem), unless tightening a lot the bolt. Any shim (even the Nitto one) would be already too much, so I made sure to grease well the bolt (to prevent stripping the threads) and used the carbon assembly that I use for the road bike (which has carbon seatpost and fork steerer), the Finish Line fiber-grip. It really works! Grips well and no creaks :)