Cannondale Black Water!
 

First time for me....... I was stripping the frame on my Black Lightning project and inspecting parts like I always do. Everything had been removed except the FD braze on mount and cranks/BB. I found out I have a stuck stem, but that's another story. I removed the FD braze on mount and noticed a little drop of water form in each hole in the down tube. I spun the frame upside down expecting a little trickle of water to come out of the seat tube. My jaw dropped as 2-3 cups of water gushed out on my shop floor! The was a trickle running out of the stem that lasted long enough for me to figure out how to take pic with my phone! I proceeded to slowly revolve the frame until all the water escaped. Looks a new BB cartridge and black stem in addition to all the consumables.

I'm assuming that total immersion for an unknown length of time, should not affect the aluminum......correct?

The frame's probably OK but everything else is probably toast. BB, headset...plan on buying new ones.

You'll save some weight too!

Is this a recent purchase? Where in the world was this stored?

Let's see... a quart is four cups, right? And a gallon weighs eight pounds. A little quick math says you shaved off a good pound, maybe one and a half!
:speedy:

Could be that the bike sat outside for a while accumulating rainwater (Possibily through the seat post clamp area and seatpost flutes and condensation in it's tubes....
Or......maybe the kids helped daddy wash the bike before it was sold and they were all over the place with the stream from the garden hose.....or dad's just a bad bike washer.... Or maybe he just loves riding in the wet a lot!

Cups of water have poured out of every older Cannondale I've worked on, I wonder how it all gets in... I once spent 4 hours removing the worst corroded bottom bracket I've seen. Lots of heat and a few tricks to keep from stripping it out.

My theory.....bike purchased and ridden for a short time (cassette is perfect) until a crash. There is some bad road rash, torn bar tape and busted bar end plug. Then it was parked outside for years.

Yup. "A pint's a pound the world around." Since a pint is two cups, 2 to 3 cups of water would weigh a 1 to 1.5 lbs. :thumb:

huh, So I guess you really weren't kidding when you said

Thumpic, I haven't had this problem, but I doubt there's any frame damage because of the water. BB maybe tough to remove without penetrating oil. How are the derailleurs?

Brad

Yes! I recall commenting on this last fall. Crazy find and your "put away wet" assessment turned out to be rather prophetic. Spiff it up and rock that criterium!