Hi, I'm hoping that someone out there can help. My brother has a very nice mountain bike that was sitting covered on an outdoor balcony for a couple of years while he was traveling around. Somehow the seat post got fused to the inside of the seat tube. After putting the thing in a vice and trying to wrench it, he also tried to hammer it to break the seal, and a number of other things. Since nothing worked, he consulted a couple of hardcore mountain bikers, and no one seems to know what to do.
Has anyone out there had this problem. Is there some sort of metal softening compound/chemical that may work? Any ingenious ideas?
I need help because he has had my mountain bike for a season and I want it back, but don't have the heart, as I'm simply a recreational rider and my brother bikes to his office everyday. 🙂
Hi, I'm hoping that someone out there can help. My brother has a very nice mountain bike that was sitting covered on an outdoor balcony for a couple of years while he was traveling around. Somehow the seat post got fused to the inside of the seat tube. After putting the thing in a vice and trying to wrench it, he also tried to hammer it to break the seal, and a number of other things. Since nothing worked, he consulted a couple of hardcore mountain bikers, and no one seems to know what to do.
Has anyone out there had this problem. Is there some sort of metal softening compound/chemical that may work? Any ingenious ideas?
I need help because he has had my mountain bike for a season and I want it back, but don't have the heart, as I'm simply a recreational rider and my brother bikes to his office everyday. 🙂
Thanks in advance for your help!
My advice is to toughen yourself up a bit! 🙂
You could try heating it with a blow torch. If you are going to hit it with a hammer then make usre you hit it as close to the stuck interface as possible. You dont want to have the impulse absorbed whilst it travels through the material.
[font=Comic Sans MS]I assume this was a steel frame and an aluminium seatpost, and you’ve had a chemical reaction between the metals, you have very little chance of breaking that bond.[/font]
[font=Comic Sans MS]Take the frame to an engineering shop and let them realm out the old seatpost.[/font]
[font=Comic Sans MS]They will then polish the down tube and you can stick in a new seat post.[/font]
[font=Comic Sans MS]This is a why the manuals on bike maintenance advice you to grease your seat post periodically.[/font]
[font='Times New Roman'][font=Comic Sans MS]Hope this helps.[/font][/font]
Years ago, when I worked in a shop we encountered this problem quite a bit. We even had someone ride a bike on a trainer for a year or two and freeze up the seat post and stem.
If it's too bad, the bike is toast. You can pull the bottom bracket, flip the bike upside down and try to flood the seat tube with something like WD40 or liquid wrench. Let it soak overnight and it may come out. You can also try to freeze the seat post and heat up the seat tube -- this worked for me once. Others may have some suggestions but if it's too bad you may not be able to get it out without damaging the frame in the process.
I as was looking at my friends alloy Giant, its steel seatpost is 34.9 OD, if it got stuck I would cut it off flush with the top of the seat tube, cut a slot in it through the seat tube clamping slot and ream the internal diametr to 27.2.
A cheap reamer I recently used on a new frame (27.0->27.2) is a Brake Wheel Cylinder Hone on the end of an electric drill.
