Seat post fused into seat tube.

[hubgearfreak]

Don't guess - look at their website..

i know the prices.
i also know that they need to pay rent, rates, electricity, insurance, water, accountant, printer, website hosting, consumables, wages, holiday pay, sick pay, NI. & etc.

given how easy we keep being told that running an SME is, i'm constantly amazed that more forummers don't do it.

how is the public sector/large enterprise this morning pete?

 

[Norm]

Less than ideal between steel and alloy - plain grease would be preferable.

Having just dunked my bike in a vat of coppaslip, why the preference for grease?

 

[PpPete]

i know the prices.
i also know that they need to pay rent, rates, electricity, insurance, water, accountant, printer, website hosting, consumables, wages, holiday pay, sick pay, NI. & etc.

given how easy we keep being told that running an SME is, i'm constantly amazed that more forummers don't do it.

how is the public sector/large enterprise this morning pete?

Please don't tell me about overheads.
I'm owner of my own (very small) business - and right now it's not bringing in enough for me to afford to send my frames to Argos, for either seat-post removal or repainting.

 

[NickM]

Having just dunked my bike in a vat of coppaslip, why the preference for grease?

I'm no chemist, but the reaction between FE and Al which forms the deposit which jams the seatpin in the seat tube is, I understand, facilitated by the presence of a conductor such as copper.

It seems a sensible precaution to prefer plain grease in interfaces between steel and alloy.

 

[dodgy]

If/when you get it out, bear in mind Dodgy's advice:

I remember the thread well, you had us in suspense for what seemed like an age!

 

[Amanda P]

It took an age.

It's quite hard to be violent in a steady and patient manner!

 

[dodgy]

Less than ideal between steel and alloy - plain grease would be preferable.

I think copper slip might be a good choice really, I use carbon assembly paste on my carbon / carbon interfaces as it increases friction (so I don't have to torque the bolts up too much). Perhaps the copper particles in the copper slip might do a similar job?

 

[hubgearfreak]

Please don't tell me about overheads.
I'm owner of my own (very small) business

good luck mate, it's not easy

 

[NickM]

I think copper slip might be a good choice really, I use carbon assembly paste on my carbon / carbon interfaces as it increases friction (so I don't have to torque the bolts up too much). Perhaps the copper particles in the copper slip might do a similar job?

I doubt it - they are tiny flakes, rather than granules. Carbon assembly paste ("gritty grease", as Mike Burrows calls it) is good stuff - I see no reason not to use it on alloy seatpins too, in whatever kind of frame.

 

[dodgy]

Fair enough, I have a gert big tin of copper grease so I use it on my alloy / alloy interfaces with no ill effects yet - obviously NEVER on bearing surfaces, though

 

[Zippy]

OK so after 24 hours of soaking my seat stem from both ends (I squibbed a load in the down tube through a bottle lug and left it upsidedown overnight) I attached our clothes line prop to the side of the saddle, scalded the down tube and got my missus to lever the line prop while I kep the lever in place and banged on the stem with a D-lock bar to try to vibrate the thing loose. Nothing - not a whisper. Still stuck.

Now I start to think about having to hacksaw the stem out. I notice the stem is out of the frame by a good 5 or 6 inches, so can there be much in the down tube anyway? I think I was sold too small a frame back in the day so my saddle has always been high out to compensate. Are saddle stems universal in length?

Is there a way to remove the square top end of the saddle stem so I can pass a stiff wire down the tube to guage where the end is? To be honest I haven't looked.

I also have a nice bottle of ammonia and also a bottle of caustic wating int he wings but a techy from Specialised didn't hold much hope for either of these.

 

[02GF74]

you mean seat posts. we're taling road or mountain bike?

on mtb, they can be up to 450 mm long!!! but more typically 350 mm - you may well have 10 inches inside the frame!

instead of whacking with D lock, try grabbing the saddle and twisting the post.

do not go for the hacksaw yet - I can't figure out what you plan to cut anyway.

soak using penetrating fluid - the proper stuff, not WD40 - then apply some heat -and try twisting again.

try the ammonia next.

 

[chriswoody]

It took me over a week of patiently applying plus gas and twisting and pulling before my seat post came free so stick at it! Do make sure it's plus gas though or a similiar penetrating fluid and not WD40!

As for using grease on the post, well I had liberally coated the post in grease but it still siezed on me so that was why I now use copaslip as an anti sieze measure.

There was a discussion on here about it a while back which reinforced my perception that this ws the right stuff to use:
http://http://www.cyclechat.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=650

 

[NickM]

There was a discussion on here about it a while back which reinforced my perception that this ws the right stuff to use:
http://http://www.cyclechat.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=650

I still can't see that Copaslip has any advantages over plain grease in an alloy/steel interface situation, so to speak... and since I don't like the idea of putting an electrical conductor in there, I'll save it for steel/steel and alloy/alloy applications.

Carbon assembly paste, on the other hand, does have an advantage over plain grease on mating surfaces, in that it reduces the clamping force required to prevent movement. It seems to me to be the best thing to use on an alloy seatpin in a steel frame.

 

[dodgy]

I still can't see that Copaslip has any advantages over plain grease in an alloy/steel interface situation

Maybe, maybe not, but does it have any disadvantages? Like someone said in the other thread, you still have some lubrication from the fine particles of copper left behind should the grease eventually wash away?

Whatever, I'll carry on using it, I've got bloody loads of it and after all, I'm worried about seizing - not free running.