Blind Bearing Puller to Remove Headset Cups and Stuck Seat Post

I have an old steel frame from which I want to remove headset cups.  Amy reason why a blind bearing puller wouldn’t work as opposed to a proper headset removal tool?

Warming to the theme, it has a stuck Alu seat post in it.  I am quite happy to destroy the post if I have to, without going to the trouble of dissolving with Caustic etc.  If I chop the top off the post to get access with a Blind Bearing Puller, any reason why this would  not work in this instance either?  After using lots of penetrating spray form both sides first.

I can’t see what the bearing puller would be pulling against in each case or would you use a slide hammer?

Best bet with seatposts is to twist, not pull, to free them up.

The only methods I’ve found to work with corroded seatposts is to either hacksaw down the inside of the post or to heat the seattube with a blowtorch. If you’re not worried about the paint, the blowtorch is by far the easiest.

wwaswas – its a blind bearing puller, and yes, it includes a slide hammer.

The headset cups are the primary focus, but both comments noted about the seat post.  I don’t really care what happens to it, I just want to get it out.  Hope to preserve the headset cups though

Headset cups I normally drift out with a hammer and punch from the opposite end. Sounds like a bodge but this method has served me well for 30 years or so. Occasionally I need to dress out the bore of the head tube if the punch has picked up any material but not normally. Never had an oval head tube. Light taps going around the cup at 12, 3, 6 and 9 O’ clock ensures it comes out square enough.

Cable tie a bag under the head tube to catch the cup preventing it from firing out across the shed floor.

I had a seat post / frame challenge a few years ago that beat me. Many hours spent trying lots of methods including filing the frame with Plusgas for a week before using stilsons to twist it out. To no avail.

We ended up shipping the frame to Argus Cycles in Bristol who machined it out. They were super cautious on the phone and wouldn’t guaranty success but the job they did was really good. You could just see they had used a reamer to the seat tube size on their final cut. You could also see where the seat post had stuck. It was were the cross bar meets the seat tube. Having successfully removed a few stuck seat posts since (that weren’t quite as stuck) it is this junction between cross bar and seat tube that is the usual (in my experience) sticking point.

Assuming you have the correct size a blind puller with a slide hammer can he used to remove headset cups.

A blind puller is unlikely to remove a seized seatpost.

Last frame with a stuck seatpost I used plumbers freeze spray and it saved the thomson post and was relatively stress free. Well worth it for circa £10

Instead of a blow torch, try a hot air stripper gun. Less agressive, most of them have a lower heat setting. Get some stilsons on the seatpost heat the seat tube as much as you dare without melting paint and twist the post free. Worked a treat on a stuck chainstay bearing on my stumpy(minus the stilsons of course).

Someone’s had luck with a slide hammer – probably best to bold the frame down in a different way though!

Might sound counter intuitive but a good downward smack with a hammer could also free it up a bit.

Got the headset cups out no problem using the bearing puller with slide hammer.  On reflection this definitely wouldn’t work with the seat post, even if I chopped it off level with the frame because the bottom is too far in to reach with the bearing puller.  Need to reconsider approach with fall back to one of the methods mentioned

Have you tried a can of full fat coke tipped into the frame – very corrosive stuff .

@Jordan, good call – that’s worked for me in the past. Club hammer is my tool of choice!

After lubricating/Plugassin /coking leave an old saddle on the seatpost and wedge a metal bar through it for leverage then one twist the frame the other the bar.

^ I did that and thought I was getting somewhere, but all I was doing was turning the clamp part in the top of the post.

So… the option of cutting a vertical slot into the existing post isn’t going to happen.  I have lopped the top off the old seat post and discovered there is about 19cm inside the frame.  There is no way I am going to make a cut that long and manage to keep it totally the same depth the length of it to avoid damaging seat tube.  Also that depth is going to be bonded pretty tight with galvanic corrosion, so I think it’s going to have to be chemical means to at least get it loosened up.

Intrigued by references to Coke.  I know that’s corrosive, but I think its acidic and so would not really impact the aluminium oxide that is the problem here.  I think it has to be caustic soda, which is much nastier to handle.  For this reason, I would try Coke as a first choice but does anyone know of real world experience of it being used successfully in this application?

Post in decent bench vice then wrestle frame rather than wrestling post.

Coke is phosphoric acid – will work on a steel frame / alloy post OK, or simply pour caustic erode it out with caustic soda.

Echoing Hamishthecat: when I were a lad working in my LBS I was taught that the best solution to a stuck seatpost was to remove saddle, clamp post in vice and twist frame. Lots more leverage that way.

If you’ve already taken the seatpost head off it’ll likely crush in the vice and then (if aluminium) disintegrate above the seatube collar.

if so, there’s a guy who used to specialise in removing posts who might be able to help, I’ll just google if he’s still doing it…

.. yup: http://theseatpostman.com

(shame I didn’t know about him when I asked a local engineering firm to ream out a very stuck seatpost in a classic daccordi steel frame with disastrous consequences)

Thanks, all.  dc2.0, I had heard of the seatpost man, but figured there’s nothing he can do that I can’t.  Your story about the daccordi is my biggest concern as this is a nice frame so I am taking it carefully.  I’ve already tried freezing tube, hot air gun and adding penetrating oil for days

My plan is to try Coke first – nothing to lose and then see if I can twist while upside down in vice without going crazy – I worry about twisting the frame as it has machined out lugs so don’t plan to approach it too vigorously.  If no luck there (I’m sceptical to be honest) then I will move to caustic and just keep trying until it comes.  If it gets to the stage of dissolving the post, that will be fine!

Will post again once there is progress 🙂 .