Viewing 17 posts - 1 through 17 (of 17 total)
  • Seized Post
  • mccraque
    Full Member

    Thought I’d change my seatpost today. Carbon frame. Alloy post. It’s seized. Won’t budge an inch. Have tried wd40… in some quantity. No joy.

    Was greased when put in (admittedly a few years ago) and hasn’t been touched since. Any thoughts? Am terrified of damaging the frame!

    Thanks

    dirtyrider
    Free Member

    soak it in full fat coke

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    Sudocrem.

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    joemmo
    Free Member

    Balsamic vinegar.

    daern
    Free Member

    All is not lost. Actually, it probably is 🙁

    So, my thread on the same subject can be found here. I’ll cut to the chase – I bought a carbon bike and discovered that the post was seized. I tried everything and anything that might work, but in the end I paid a local indy mechanic to painstakingly cut the thing out, which he did and the bike has been fine since then.

    The long and the short of it is that if it’s as seized as mine (which is might not be, to be fair, it won’t come out without violence (i.e. a hacksaw) and don’t be surprised if none of the other suggestions work.

    Personally, I think the most effective non-destructive method is freezer spray down the inside, which will shrink the metal post but leave the carbon frame largely unaffected. Then get the top of the post in a vice and twist, but be aware that if it’s as seized as mine was, the frame will snap before the post gives out, so be careful about the amount of torque you apply through the frame.

    If you’re based in Yorkshire, and still stuck, drop me a PM and I’ll put you in touch with the chap that fixed mine 🙂

    ssboggy
    Full Member

    seatpost man

    You could try the seatpost man

    darrenspink
    Free Member

    PLENTY of forum posts on this. But if all fails..

    Home

    Edit..beaten to it.

    coomber
    Free Member

    Penetrating oil is the choice. WD40 won’t do a thing. Not even sure Penetrating oil works on carbon/aluminium bonding.

    daern
    Free Member

    Not even sure Penetrating oil works on carbon/aluminium bonding.

    It certainly didn’t on mine. Even when nearly all of the material in the post was cut out, it still took a pretty huge amount of force to release.

    Now this subject has come up again, I’ll be rechecking my new post tonight 🙂

    Wookster
    Full Member

    Seatpost man +3 just awesome!!!

    daern
    Free Member

    Mine was done by Marek at Aurelius Cycles near Skipton. Worked out a fair bit cheaper for me, because I could walk it in rather than post and he did a cracking job, not marking the frame at all. (I don’t think anyone was going to recover the seatpost!)

    mccraque
    Full Member

    I tried penetrating oil today. Didn’t work. Not even sure I managed to drizzle any down into the frame as most of it ran off the lip rather than down the inside of the seat tube

    onandon
    Free Member

    In my experience, it’s just breaking the initial bond that’s the hard part.
    In the past I’ve held the frame in one hand and hit the top of the post with a dead blow hammer.
    It worked enough that I could wiggle it out.

    If you try this, don’t rigidly mount the frame in anything as it will probably crack.

    stewartc
    Free Member

    Seat post in vice, some wd40 liberally applied, then try to twist the frame, that’s how I got mine off a few years back.

    n0b0dy0ftheg0at
    Free Member

    Upside down bike, can of full fat Coke into seat tube for ~24 hours, block of wood and mallet on saddle into frame.

    federalski
    Free Member

    £70 for the seatpost guy above could be money well spent for all the faff it can take, it is a nightmare trying to get some posts out.

    Last one for me I had to drill through the post, put a steel rod though it, then a length of scaffolding over the rod to leverage some movement. Still took another hour or so to get it removed after I got it moving.
    And that was after a couple of days of spraying the post with various things to free it.

    dovebiker
    Full Member

    FWIW Coke won’t do anything for aluminium alloy corrosion except make it sticky as it’s acidic and you need a strong alkali to dissolve the aluminium oxide.

    ACF50 spray is effective for aluminium oxide corrosion so will be far better than any penetrating oil / WD40/GT85 as these are simply lubricants than won’t actively do anything to the chemical bond. Caustic soda works too but not if your frame has an internal alloy seatpost insert – many do.

    Clamping post head in vice and twisting frame sometimes works, but I’ve seen frames where the seattube has simply split / peeled-open.

Viewing 17 posts - 1 through 17 (of 17 total)

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