Bicycle Mechanics - Major problem: can't get Park internal seat tube clamp out!

I'm having one of those "calm down, take deep steady breaths" moments right now and could use some advice.

I used a Park ICS-4 internal seat clamp to secure my Kuota Khan carbon fiber bike on a Park stand. Basically, this is a device that goes down the seat-tube and has and end that expands until it grips the inside of the tube. Since the bike was moving around on the stand, I probably overtightened it. Now, when I want to remove it, the internal expansion parts do not seem to loosen up at all. I unscrewed the knob to the point where it came off the shaft, but no amount of pulling is getting this thing to budge.

Right now, I'm going to take a break and think about it, but any advice would be welcomed.

Thanks,
John

http://www.parktool.com/products/detail.asp?cat=24&item=ISC-4#

If the expansion nut works like an old quill stem wedge, you could try hitting the bolt with a hammer to see if it loosens up.

Well, I thought that I made a little progress in that I was able to extract the shaft. Unfortunately, looking down the tube, I can see that the "blade" part is still wedged down there. This may actually be worse, since now I don't have a connection with the stuck blade.

For some reason, it seems as though the blades failed to retract when I first went to remove the tool.

-John

By retightening the knob and pushing down a bit, I was able to extract the shaft of the tool. Seemed like progress, but now I can look down the tube and see that expanding blade part is still stuck down there. That's kind of depressing.

-John

If the expansion nut works like an old quill stem wedge, you could try hitting the bolt with a hammer to see if it loosens up.

What he said. It sounds like you have left the expander nut and the blades wedged inside the seat tube. If you can't get the bolt threaded back into the expander nut, then knock it out with a long screwdriver or the like. From there, remove the expander nut out through the BB shell. If you need to, you can fish the blades out of the seat tube with the Park CHBIAH-1 Coat-Hanger-Bent-Into-A-Hook tool.

Thanks for the good advice! I'll give it a try.

-John

Happy ending to this story: Since I wasn't prepared to remove the BB myself, I took it in to my LBS. The main mechanic took one look at it and told another mechanic to remove the water bottle cage screws. Sure enough, the blade parts of the tool fell right out. Doh!

-John

Were the screws there before you inserted the clamp or did you put the cages on with the clamp already in?

I never would have thought of that.

Screws were there before I put the tool in. I'm not sure if the blade part got caught on the cage screws initially, or if that happened after I managed to pull out the bolt, when the blades were left behind.

-John