Quill stems

[bragi]

I have an older bike, and recently, when I had to take the stem assembly apart, I noticed that the quill part, or whatever you call it, looked rusty. Very rusty. Like many other maintenance issues, this got me to worrying. Has anyone out there ever heard of a quill stem catastrophically failing? I'm probably going to replace it anyway eventually; I'm just wondering if I should tackle this one with a bit more urgency.

[Little Darwin]

Theonly widespread issue I hav hears with stem failure was for specific alloy stems, so rust wasn't the issue.

If the rust is surface only, I wouldn't panic.

[pluc]

Even though it is probably not an issue, I'd still remove the rust and rust-proof the part.

[cerewa]

there's no big reason you shouldn't try to remove the rust. Cover the affected parts with plenty of grease to prevent rust in the future. (don't worry about the grease making your stem slip- if your stem is tightened as much as it should be, grease shouldn't cause any slipping problem at all)

[bragi]

Thank you all ; I wire-brushed the hell out of it, greased it, and put it back on, and it seems to work fine.