The Chainlink

Been working on this one for a while.  It's pretty much fused.

When at it with a pipe wrench the other night, but no go.

Favorite trick?  Thanks.

 

(FWIW the frame is exactly like this one:)

 

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UV, any suggestions for frozen bottom bracket fixed cups?

I stopped at the hardware store on my way home and bought a bottle of penetrating oil, a metal hacksaw blade (wish I'd read UV's post more thoroughly-- it's medium) and a larger (18") pipe wrench.

I guess I'll add a little oil and take a turn with the wrench every second or third time I pass the bike for the next week or two.

Would like to get studded tires on this bike and see if they're good for anything.

Yes, I don''t want to derail this thread I'll PM you.


Moc Artsy said:

UV, any suggestions for frozen bottom bracket fixed cups?

If you would like you can do it at my shop with my tools free of charge. 

h' said:

I stopped at the hardware store on my way home and bought a bottle of penetrating oil, a metal hacksaw blade (wish I'd read UV's post more thoroughly-- it's medium) and a larger (18") pipe wrench.

I guess I'll add a little oil and take a turn with the wrench every second or third time I pass the bike for the next week or two.

Would like to get studded tires on this bike and see if they're good for anything.

Thanks! The chop off and hacksaw blade is on my to-do list for today (Olio Penetrato no Worko, Operaman bye bye) but I may come crawling to you with the resultant mess :-)

send pics :))

Before starting the hacksaw method, you may want to try drilling a hole through the seatpost and using a leverage bar.  You will have to be pretty accurate with the drilling.  If you can get an 8mm allen key through the center, use a 3-4 foot long tube on the other end and you can gets tons of leverage for turning.  Mix this with the PB weld and it might work.  would be easier if you had a bigger post though.

For a bit of background and to help understand what's happening here's the story.

When two metals (or alloys as some may deal with in a aluminum seatpost and an aluminum frame) contact each other and a film of water (condensation or worst sweat with its salt content) gets betwixt 'em you get a galavtic reaction just like in a battery. This action causes the metals to exchange electrons and weld themselves together. Despite this being a weak bond it is across a fairly large surface and a snug fit on the diameter. Any deformation of the 2 diameters results in a binding that usually results in more damage (swagging) if force is applied to a dry surface mating. If you managed to get any grit (sand, dust, metal shavings or the like) into the fitting you're toast as the softer metal will roll up burrs and further deform the diameters.

The best way to tackle this situation is before the problem occurs. Before inserting the post be sure the socket and post are impecibly clean (no grit of any kind) and then lightly greased with a fine light wieght GREASE or a never sieze compound. This isolates the 2 metals from each other and keeps dirt from insinuating itself into the fitiing. Always wipe the post before making adjustments (even if yer out on the trail...that trail dust and mud is real problem causing grit). And befor trying to remove the post clean and lube the fitting with a good thin oil (penetrating oil, sewing machine oil 5w/10w, even a non sulphur/non water based cutting fluid) and let it sit to allow penetration into the fitting.

Once you've gotten it good and stuck (ya' just had to ignore all the suggestions, didn't ya') the only recourse is to remove any pressure on the 2 surfaces holding them to each other...the cutting method discussed in earlier postings...or in some lucky cases warming (I'd say heating but that could mislead people to break out the torch and that opens a whole can of possible bad alternatives) the outside piece to get it to expand.

If this sounds like a daunting task yer wright...not teribbly hard but tricky and slow.

The best is starting right with never seize or grease and periodically pulling and cleaning the post, never assemble a dirty post into a dirty tube and look for dents or dirt before trying to remove.

Good luck

Jeff

The Chicagoan

Oh their are a plethora of oil products that can help, WD-40 (not a favorite of mine but many are faithful users), Liquid Wrench (very commonly available), Tap-matic (and a slew of oil based drilling and tapping solutions), Ar-coil (or sumfin like that...a spray oil who's slogan is the 'oil that creeps') and many, many others.

I set out to have a do-nothing day (no workee and rather intense orchestra reheasal/concert tomorrow) but have at least one did-something under my belt.

I'd say I put in a solid 90 minutes on this tonight.  Old episode of DS9 (the baseball episode that was nice to have as background but I probably would have skipped otherwise) helped me stay calm. A white russian helped but I should have started it earlier into the process.

 

I gave it one more solid try with the pipe wrench but nothing.

 

Sawzalled the seatpost mostly off downstairs, moved my kitchen table, set up my workstand, and got busy with various strategies.

I have no idea how the hacksaw blade was supposed to work-- it didn't seem to be very effective although I did spend a lot of time sawing away:

As mentioned, probably because I saw the suggestion for course teeth too late.

Most of the mileage I got out of the sawzall . . . I cut, compressed with a vice grips, hammered, cut, compressed, etc.  Once there seemed to be a bit of distance between the seatpost and collar in a few places I started in again with a healthy dose of penetrating oil as well.

It's hard to capture the excitement of the moment with still photos, but from one moment to the next it finally was free:

 

It was pretty clear grease had been appropriately applied, but had long left the upper part of the seat tube:I was pretty aggressive with the sawzall but don't really see any evidence of having screwed up the frame.

 

A local shop had measured the seatpost and thought it might be 27.2, so I bought one in that size-- unfortunately I found that it was mislabeled and the seatpost is marked 28.6; info I've found online suggests the size is supposed to be 26.6-- will be easy to figure out what fits now.

 

 

Thanks to everyone for the great info!

 

 

coca cola

that's what Boulevard Bikes used to unseize mine last summer .

This discussion had some useful info: http://www.thechainlink.org/forum/topics/theres-now-a-bounty-on-my?...

The freezeoff method worked really well for a seatpost I encountered.

A local shop that took a look suggested that-- but I wanted to avoid the mess.

jonathan said:

coca cola

that's what Boulevard Bikes used to unseize mine last summer .

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