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!
And, perhaps, a very light coat of vaseline when fitting, to prevent corrosion ..
"David E. Belcher" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:
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!
And, perhaps, a very light coat of vaseline when fitting, to prevent corrosion ..
Quoted message said:
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 hidden] +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/]
