For quill stem fans - a cautionary tale



D

David E. Belcher

Guest
Off to collect my race bike after work today now that the bike shop
have managed to remove my stem. It was always a tight fit with the old
Cr-Mo fork, but got well & truly jammed in the Time Sprint carbon forks
I recently purchased and fitted. Turns out that the fact that it was a
painted stem (not a cheap & nasty one either, but a Synthesis-style 3T
one) was to blame - the extra thickness of the coat of paint made it
wedge tight in the steerer, and once the mechanics at the shop heated
it following decapitation of the stem with a saw (allowing them to
separate fork from h/set & frame) - to burn off the coat of paint - it
came out without any grief! Needless to say, the replacement stem is a
nice plain silver one (3T again, an actual Synthesis this time)....
Moral of the story - if you prefer traditional quill stems, don't buy
one with a painted shaft!

David Belcher
 
And, perhaps, a very light coat of vaseline when fitting, to prevent
corrosion ..


"David E. Belcher" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Off to collect my race bike after work today now that the bike shop
> have managed to remove my stem. It was always a tight fit with the old
> Cr-Mo fork, but got well & truly jammed in the Time Sprint carbon forks
> I recently purchased and fitted. Turns out that the fact that it was a
> painted stem (not a cheap & nasty one either, but a Synthesis-style 3T
> one) was to blame - the extra thickness of the coat of paint made it
> wedge tight in the steerer, and once the mechanics at the shop heated
> it following decapitation of the stem with a saw (allowing them to
> separate fork from h/set & frame) - to burn off the coat of paint - it
> came out without any grief! Needless to say, the replacement stem is a
> nice plain silver one (3T again, an actual Synthesis this time)....
> Moral of the story - if you prefer traditional quill stems, don't buy
> one with a painted shaft!
>
> David Belcher
>
 
R. Murphy wrote:

> And, perhaps, a very light coat of vaseline when fitting, to prevent
> corrosion ..


I did actually grease said stem before fitting. Fat lot of good that
did! :-(

David Belcher
 
David E. Belcher <[email protected]> wrote:

> R. Murphy wrote:


>> And, perhaps, a very light coat of vaseline when fitting, to prevent
>> corrosion ..


> I did actually grease said stem before fitting. Fat lot of good that
> did! :-(


Grease isn't good enough. What you need is copper anti-seize
compound. My tin of it, made by Rock Oil, says it's a bentone grease
with copper added. Has an opaque bronze colour. Haven't had a seizing
problem since I first started using it some twenty years ago.

--
Chris Malcolm [email protected] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]