grinderbob

I have a 3TTT quill stem. The expander isn't the wedge type. After loosening the expander bolt, and
soaking the inside with wd40, I still wasn't able to tap the coin thing out. I don't think there's any
magic to it. But if you have some tips, please share. Thanks.

OLDYELLR

Dumb question, but did you hammer the bolt down after loosening it a few turns? The quill type require this, while the wedge type usually don't. Use a block of wood to protect the bolt head.

grinderbob

I did loosen the expander bolt quite a bit. I haven't soaked it overnight yet. But I wonder if that would help.
I also rotate the bike upside down and spray some wd40 from the bottom side.

OLDYELLR

Not sure that you quite understood what I meant. The threaded plug at the bottom of the quill is tapered and expands the stem when the bolt is tightened. You must loosen the bolt a few turns, then hammer it down to drive the tapered plug downwards to relieve the expansion pressure it's exerting on the stem. Unless the stem is stuck inside the steerer due to corrosion, you should now be able to turn it and pull it out.

grinderbob

I had in fact totally take the bolt out, and hammered the taper plug using a long screw driver.
No luck. I just googled "remove quill stem", someone said this is a frozen stem problem and like you said
is corrsion and cannot be saved. Only way out is to drill the stem out from inside.

grinderbob

I have another steel bike using the same TTT quill stem with expander plug. I only had the NOS stem put
in like 1 month ago. I could not get it out. But after 5 minutes of applying liquid wrench and hammering,
it broke free. But I didn't see any corrsion on the stem or inside the steer tube. Strange. I had used
other wedge type stem, like SR, Salsa (don't know what materal the wedge is) on other steel bike (old
and new), never had a problem removing them.

highlyselassie

This has nothing to do with rust/corrosion. Using any kind of lubricant will not help. When you installed the stem and tightened the allen bolt, the expander plug made the stem expand, by getting pulled into the bottom of it(geddit?). Loosen allen bolt a few turns(but so it's still connected to the plug), smack with a hammer(wood on top of bolt) and out it pops.

top506

1) Re-install the bolt.
2) Unscrew the bolt three full turns.
3) Tap top of bolt with hammer.
4) Remove stem.
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