Hey Guys, I just put in a stiffener plate in my miyata saddle and ran into a problem, Theres 3 bolts on the front handle. the top 1 is your standard bolt but the bottom 2 are connected, when i put the stiffener plate on the back 2 front bolts dont have enough room to put the handle and nuts on so do i replace them with regular bolts?
I put the GB4 stiffener in a made in Japan Miyata seat. I switched to 1/4 inch carriage bolts for the seat handle. The carriage bolts are longer and you need the extra length. I can't remember what length carriage bolts I used. I also had to drill out or file out the holes a little bit in the plastic seat base so the bolts would go through straight and line up with the holes in the handle. It takes a little bit of fussing to get it all to work, but overall it works well. I'm using the seat stiffener on my freestyle seat.
Yes. I bought 1/4"x 1 1/2" carriage bolts with 1/4" nuts. Unfortunately, I could not get metric.
1" bolts will work fine - until you add the Gemcrest leather cover and the Steve Howard front handle. Then, you will need the longer bolts AND have to cut them down to 1/4" x 1 1/4" so that you can tighten them with a socket.
Even though it's not bent quite right, I am very impressed with the GB4 stiffener. It solves many problems that had previously.
You can get 1/4 inch carriage bolts that are 1-1/4 inches long. But you'll have to go to a store that specializes in fasteners. Your regular hardware store is not likely to have the less common sizes. Here in the Seattle area I go to 'Tacoma Screw' (http://www.tacomascrew.com/default.htm). There should be similar shops in other cities and states.
It is less elegant using the imperial hardware sizes because now I've got a mix of metric and imperial hardware in the seat. Now it takes two different size sockets to tighten all the nuts. Eh, but what are you gonna do? It's impossible to find metric carriage bolts here in the US.
*Then, you will need the longer bolts AND have to cut them down to 1/4" x 1 1/4" so that you can tighten them with a socket. *
It's also possible to get a "deep socket" piece for your wrench which will allow you to tighten even with the longer bolts. Some bigger hardware stores might sell them individually. I used this and it worked fine. My worry with cutting the bolt down afterward was risk of mis-shaping the end, preventing (or increasing the difficulty of) removal at some future time if I needed to replace the handle.
Did you guys put longer bolts on everything or just the front. I changed the bolts on the front handle which worked except when I went to put on the seat post the back 2 bolts on the seat post wouldn't slide through, actually 1 would but 1 wouldn't. It appeared that the seat base the stiffener plate and the seat post werent lined up and I couldnt't get it lined up. So what do I do?
I was able to get by with only longer bolts for the handle. Everything else is still the stock Miyata hardware. But I've also got a made in Japan Miyata seat that has different hardware than the made in China Miyata seats. I don't know how much of a difference that makes. The Miyata bolts I'm using for the seatpost mounts are just barely long enough.
You can always use longer 1/4 inch carriage bolts for the seatpost bolts if the Miyata bolts aren't long enough. Shouldn't be a problem. A little fussing around with a drill and file on the plastic seat base may also be necessary to get things to line up again.
With three or more different generations of Miyata style seats in common use now, it's probably impossible to make a seat stiffener that will fit all of them perfectly. The holes and stuff are not in exactly the same places on all of the different generations of seats.
yeah dude but you definetly going to have trouble, seeing as though the magnum series is fatally flawed being as though the caple action is what is now considered what is to the years most groundbreaking new material to use with the help of the straddle as the likely soure is yet to be known
