Originally Posted by
Clydes Dale
Thanks for the input.
DaveSSS, It is a design flaw if all the stems are similar (which I believe is the case). Yes, a machine shop would be cost prohibitive. But I was hoping a headtube reamer/facer tool could be used somehow?
FBinNY, the bottom surface is so far off, I can easily see it when I install the 1inch adaptor shim (that came with the stem). The shim is "sqaure"
I worked as a machinist for 10 years and a manufacturing engineer for another 10 years. It doesn't matter is every stem you can find is not square, it's still a manufacturing defect, since the top and bottom surfaces of all stems are supposed to be square to the ID of the stem. No one would design a stem to be out of square. The design is what's on paper, not the finished product.
The headtube facer is the right idea, but all it does is slide over a guide shaft to square it up to the head tube. The shafts would be made to fit much larger head tube diameters, not stems.
If you have a 1" reducer bushing with a shoulder on it, you could use feeler gages between the stem and shoulder to identify the high and low areas. With enough skill, the high spots would be filed down by hand, but it takes a very skilled person with a large file to do this successfully.