That time a seized seatpost taught me a lesson in Kansas City

I was working on an old Schwinn at my buddy's shop in Kansas City about 6 months ago. The seatpost was stuck solid, like it had been welded in there for 20 years. I tried penetrating oil, heat from a torch, even a pipe wrench, and nothing budged. Finally I grabbed a hacksaw and carefully cut the post out from inside the frame, then used a tap to clean the threads. Took me about 3 hours total, and I nearly messed up the frame twice. Turns out the previous owner had used some kind of adhesive instead of grease. Has anyone else run into a weird fix like that where you had to get creative?

2 comments

2 Comments

nina_johnson862d agoMost Upvoted

Oh man, that adhesive thing is wild. I've found some weird fixes over the years but glue on a seatpost takes the cake. Did you ever figure out what kind of adhesive it was, like was it JB Weld or some sort of epoxy? I'm asking because I had a similar nightmare on an old Raleigh where someone used what looked like liquid nails, and I ended up having to drill it out in pieces with a carbide bit. That mess took me a whole weekend and I still have scars on my hands from the metal shavings. I swear some people just hate the next guy who has to work on their bike. What did the inside of the seat tube look like after you got the hacksaw through it?

xena_brown502d ago

Wasn't JB Weld, more like that green Loctite stuff. @nina_johnson86 tube looked like a crime scene after.