Hello all,
Was not sure where to post this, was going to put it in classifieds but rules say no fishing.
A quick background story: I bought this bike as my first fixed gear bike/ first bike in a long time off the ebay a few years back. The seller told me about a seized seatpost issue (which was ok, the bike was quite cheap and fitted ok), never told me about the seized stem (which later become a problem, in hindsight now with more experience I personally will never buy anything with anything seized.)
So the bike got me around for a couple of years no problems. Untill I thought the headset lockring had stripped and needed replacing. That is when I realised that a seized stem is an even bigger bugger than a seized seat post. This led me to quickly pickup up a cheapo carbolite frame to transfer my bike over onto.
Thus this 531 frame had been sitting around for a year or so. I saw it one day and thought I could sort the sod out, a bit of googling later and with a bit of help from my Dad we made a pigs ear even more tatty.
We first tried all the lemon acid, wd40, manual twisting etc techniques. Nothing. Then come out the hacksaw, cut down the stems to try cutting it out. I have about a 5 minute patience for things like that so gave up. Dad started drilling out the stems instead and we decided that it was just too deep and beyond our tools reach anyway.
We than went with a big hammer and a crowbar wedged in the stem and gently but firmy started to hammer on the stuck stem....the thing miraculously moved....deeper into the headtube! I then noticed that of course it was never my headset that was buggered...it was the threads on the fork that were stripped/ worn in patches. We than called it a day.
So, after all that, which I'm sure was a thrillin story....
Would this even be worth free to anyone, someone? Or would the bin even spit it out?
Hello all,
Was not sure where to post this, was going to put it in classifieds but rules say no fishing.
A quick background story: I bought this bike as my first fixed gear bike/ first bike in a long time off the ebay a few years back. The seller told me about a seized seatpost issue (which was ok, the bike was quite cheap and fitted ok), never told me about the seized stem (which later become a problem, in hindsight now with more experience I personally will never buy anything with anything seized.)
So the bike got me around for a couple of years no problems. Untill I thought the headset lockring had stripped and needed replacing. That is when I realised that a seized stem is an even bigger bugger than a seized seat post. This led me to quickly pickup up a cheapo carbolite frame to transfer my bike over onto.
Thus this 531 frame had been sitting around for a year or so. I saw it one day and thought I could sort the sod out, a bit of googling later and with a bit of help from my Dad we made a pigs ear even more tatty.
We first tried all the lemon acid, wd40, manual twisting etc techniques. Nothing. Then come out the hacksaw, cut down the stems to try cutting it out. I have about a 5 minute patience for things like that so gave up. Dad started drilling out the stems instead and we decided that it was just too deep and beyond our tools reach anyway.
We than went with a big hammer and a crowbar wedged in the stem and gently but firmy started to hammer on the stuck stem....the thing miraculously moved....deeper into the headtube! I then noticed that of course it was never my headset that was buggered...it was the threads on the fork that were stripped/ worn in patches. We than called it a day.
So, after all that, which I'm sure was a thrillin story....
Would this even be worth free to anyone, someone? Or would the bin even spit it out?
Thought I would air this before I dump it.