Thanks to all for taking the time to offer your suggestions and experiences. You've proved once more that there's more than one way to skin a cat!

I thought ammonia was bad enough but lye is even worse. However, it is a solution that gets me back on the road sooner (and I'm really ticked off at the riding I've already missed). You guys who directly addressed my concerns for the safety of the steel and the paint have won me over. And it just so happens that I have a bottle of Red Devil lye (NaOH) in the shop, which also means I don't have to beat (or twist) on my frame any more. I keep lye in stock -- believe it or not -- for making Bavarian soft pretzels.

So what about fumes and ventilation? Is this something that's safe to do inside of a closed garage? Does it need to be done out of doors, or can I just leave the door open? I take extreme precautions with the lye in pretzel-making, and then it's only a mild solution mixed in cold water, nothing expected to dissolve metal.

Considering the inner diameter of the seat tube is far from round, what do I use to seal it? What will withstand the lye? I already made an effort to seal it with a whittled-down cork from a wine bottle but that wouldn't even stand up to apple cider vinegar.

And are we talking days for this to work or hours?

Do you have a recommended lye/water ratio? And what about getting it into the seat tube? I've been using a plastic funnel connected to a piece of surgical tubing that I could route into the bottom bracket and down into the seat tube. I'd be more than willing to sacrifice the setup I'm already using to the cause, it that's workable.

Sorry to ask for so much hand-holding but I find that learning from other people's mistakes is far less painful than making them myself would be. And the last think I want to do is booger up this frame (any more than I already did) through my own stupidity.


Andrew R Stewart, I live in the "mid-south" region of the southeastern US, and 2016 was uncommonly hot and mizzable humid here. I also was uncommonly lucky at dodging the popcorn thunderstorms so I only got drenched maybe three times all year.

The seatpost was last installed in the winter of 2015/2016, coated with Loctite C5-A copper-based anti-seize (my usual is lithium grease). C5-A works fantastically well for pedals, chainring bolts and bottom bracket threads, none of which (in my case) is steel/aluminum. I don't know that the C5-a contributed, or that the lithium grease would have fared any better, but when this is over, I'm switching back to it ...just in case ...but only for the seatpost.

In any case, I'll definitely add "seat post bolt loosening and post wiggling" to my periodic maintenance tasks.