peripatetic

Alright,

So I just got this nice old Miyata road bike. Everything on it's good, but the seat post is stuck. I've gone through all of Sheldon Brown's suggestions, and I haven't got the thing to budge. I think the problem is that it's an old aluminum post, and whoever had it before shoved it down past the cut-out parts of the post, so I think that it's actually wedged in and compressed into the frame. Anyway, if anyone around here could help, (maybe bring along a hacksaw!) I'd appreciate it, buy you a six-pack or something in exchange for keeping me from having to head all the way over to Manhattan! PM me.


Or, if you have some suggestions besides Sheldon Brown's, I wouldn't mind hearing that, also.

thanks,

max

BillK

I'm up near D.C....but you can always rent a Sawzall (although I'd recommend taking it sloooow, so you don't cut through the frame!).

capwater

I'm in Richmond with a garage full of tools if you feel like driving over. Soak the crap out of it with liquid wrench for a couple of days and then get the biggest pipe wrench you can find and try twisting it out.

Rev.Chuck

Isn't there a village blacksmith that can help you out?

If it is a steel frame I whack off the top of the seat post and saw two opposing slits into it. Then collapse it and pull it out.

tvphobic

Capwater, you're very nice. I love the village blacksmith comment Rev Chuck.
'Course, the Williamsburg peripatetic is talking about ( I used to live there before it was "discovered" ) is an old eastern european immigrant section of North Brooklyn that is now full of bedheaded hipsters on track bikes with no brakes. Well, that's a bit of a generalization.

Rev.Chuck

In that case Securely lock the bike outside and put a sign on it, "Free seatpost"

It figures something else would be named Williamsburg, how many different names can you come up with for towns?

peripatetic

Capwater, thanks for the offer, as tvphobic mentioned, I'm in that discovered land of bedheaded hipsters, Williamsburg Brooklyn, NOT Williamsburg, Virginia. It's still a bit full of Eastern European--mainly Polish--immigrants, though that's actually Greenpoint: this neighborhood is mainly Italians, who I'm sure were here back in the day, even before some of us were cooler than **** before all the loser hipsters invaded. I'm not much of a bedheaded hipster, just a guy who likes bikes (a bit inspired by the hipsters, I'll admit.) Yes, it's a scene, but I'm not really into it--I used to live in E. Harlem, but my apt. was too dark.

Anyway, if anyone in WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN, would like to lend a helping hand and not make some dickish comment on where I live, I'm asking. If anyone else wants to chat about being cooler than the cool people before the cool people were cool, post in a more appropriate forum, and I'll get out my leisure suit, cuban cigars and sit down for a nice palaver about generalizations about people you haven't even seen.

Like I said in the OP, I've tried EVERYTHING on Sheldon's site, PLUS liquid wrench, short of using a saw. I even have a bottle of ammonia lying around that I don't know what to do with, since I pretty much hate the stuff.

I guess this thread is leading to nothing, so I'll make a trip to the LBS, in my case, a train ride away. I have enough stuff in my small apt., and if I'm going to go to the trouble to rent a saw, I may as well just go to the LBS.

Rev.Chuck

Once again, while I cannot come right out there, take a hacksaw, cut the top off the post leaving a few inches. Cut across the post down to the top of the frame(two slots 180 from each other. Remove the blade from the saw and wrap one end in a rag. Now cut straight down using the slots as a guide. If you have a steel frame you can be less careful about sawing all the way through the post. If it is alloy check often. You want to put a kerf right up to the frame tube. Then crush it with a set of channel locks and twist it out. It take patience but works very well.

You can get a hacksaw cheap and then after you get done you still have a hacksaw.

peripatetic

Thanks, Reverend. I was hoping when I posted that someone in my 'hood would be able to just lend be their hacksaw. I have purchased enough tools of late, and it's a matter of not only economics (NOTHING in NY is cheap!), but also space--my tiny apt. is just stuffed full of bike frames, tools et. al., and it's literally out of hand. So I think I'll just go ask them to take care of it at the LBS when I go to pick up a new freewheel. (I like buying tools, but I HATE buying tools for ONE use.)

Thanks again for the advice, though. Come to think of it, maybe I'll go ask someone at a local hardware store or woodshop or something.

Rev.Chuck

You can even get one of the really cheap end handle saws. That style is pretty good for this kind of job. They are really cheap, but toss the blade that comes with it and get a nice one with 28-32 teeth. Shouldn't be more than ten bucks.

Or really economise and just get the blade and wrap the blade to protect your hand. I have a feeling the shop will charge you a fair amount, it can take a while to get one out.

tvphobic

Well, since I still work and socialize in Williamsburg, I experience the neighborhood regularly and can continue to rashly generalize about it and its residents. However, you are just imagining that I was taking a shot at you personally or something, which I was not doing and have never done on these forums; as a rule, in fact, I am on watch against the kind of touchy ad hominem nonsense that goes on. I was simply posting on the difference between similarly named geographic locales, and was not making a "dickish" comment, and was not portraying myself as cool.

Rev.Chuck

I thought it was kind of funny myself, I had never heard of another Williamsburg and didn't even look at the location: nyc. Everyone just assumed you were down the street from Roy Underhill. Sometimes I check it if I think it might be another place with the same name.

peripatetic

Awright, my misperception. Sorry to assume you were talking about me. I actually happen to be in a fairly grungy and un-cool part of the neighborhood, surrounded by projects and rapidly-growing high-rise loft condominiums (there are I think seven new buildings going up around my immediate block!) I generally dislike being grouped with the 'hipsters' here, as I basically do my own thing and mainly moved here because I got lucky and a hipster-ish friend of mine found a cheap, no-fee apt. in her building, and because the location is generally closer to more of the places where I go in the city. I look to moving somewhere else in the near future, but hey, nowadays, where is one going to go? IT's ALL EXPENSIVE!

I take all of my comments back and hope I didn't ruin your evening.




Now, any hipsters out there with a hacksaw?!!!!

Rev.Chuck

Or a mill. A mill would work well. Must be some arty hipster guy into metal work around there somewhere.

tvphobic

As well as being absurdly hip, I have a collection of hacksaws but missed my excuse to come out this weekend as I forgot about a friend's gig. Next time though. In the meantime I wish you good luck. Rev. Chuck wrote a good method here, but I know of one person who said that after cutting the top of the post off, heating the seat tube with a torch and stuffing the remains of the post with a little cloth bag of ice made it _fall_ out - he had thought to invert the bike first.

BTW Thanks for the reconsidering. I get no pleasure from ticking anyone off on bikeforums. Funny memory- I lived on Havemeyer between Grand and Metropolitan in 94-95 and if I walked from the train after 10 PM I hardly ever saw anyone or anything alive other than stray cats, even on weekends.

peripatetic

Actually, on that part of Havemeyer late at night, there are usually just a lot of really loud and often drunk Puerto Ricans, if anyone at all. I like that part of the neighborhood, though, because it's still kind of a hidden oasis in the midst of hipsterville. Myself, I'm in the sticks here, halfway between Grand and the huge, Chinese retirement highrises.

Saws, torches, this is why I was looking for a local to help me out. okay, back to the drawing board then...

Rev. Chuck, you're probably right that there must be some artsy type around here with the needed tools, but I just don't hang around with any artsy people ...

really.

capwater

Friggin' Yankees trying to confuse a couple of good old southern boys like Chuck and myself. If in NYC, go see John at Conrad's or Gus at Rennaisance. Either way you'll "Git R Done".

velocipedio

aren't there bike shops in williamsburg?

BillK

Sorry about the location confusion, but I was serious about my Sawzall comment. You can rent them at speciality rental shops or some chain hardware/lumber stores like Lowes/Home Depot for ~$20/day. It would cut through the seat post like butter, and when you're done, just return the unit. Nothing to take up space in the apartment.

If money is a concern, however, then I'd go with the Rev.'s advice and pick up a single good-quality hacksaw blade, wrap one end with a rag and some electrical tape (something to make it comfortable), and follow his advice.

lotek 

Do a search on Bikelist.org
https://catfood.phred.org/query.asp
re: seatpost in the past month (maybe 2)
there was a whole discussion on non
invasive ways to remove them
(it was stuck in a 78 Gios Super Record).
Don't be too heavy handed the owner got
overzealous and is now paying for a new
seat tube to be brazed in.
I knew where Williamsburg is, and
the Koskiosko (sp?) bridge and greenpoint
and sheepshead bay (born in that area).
What is the name of the steakhouse in Williamsburg?
Used to go there years (20) ago, can't recall it
now.

Marty

peripatetic

Thanks for the advice all! Marty, you're thinking of Peter Luger's.

birucon

The guys at Spokes and strings on Havemeyer can hook you up for a reasonable rate but I't won't be cheaper than the 3 bucks a decent hacksaw blade will set you back.

lotek - peter luger's. freakin' delicious.

luker

wow. you guys get pretty far afield. but stuck seatposts suck. Ammonia dissolves aluminum oxide, assuming an aluminum seatpost..., and that (plus a little rust), is what is swelling the space between the seatpost and the frame. Sometimes (before you cut the seatpost off!) you can invert the bike, and pour ammonia into the seattube from the bottom bracket. let it set for a couple of days and the seatpost comes free. sometimes. Of course you have to have a microadjust seatpost or seal the top of an open seatpost, to keep the ammonia in there doing its job.
I have a bike that has had the seatpost in place since 1977, and I've tried everything. The post has been sawzalled into little aluminum ribbons and they will not let go of the steel tube. I'm gonna send the frame to a painter and let him heat the tubes to break the bond. A well equipped frame shop can also ream out the aluminum post. Then they get to paint the bike and charge appropriately, tho.