having a fair bit of trouble getting the stem into the steerer
its a cinelli 1a stem and a 1" fork
i’ve lightly wet and dried around the top of the of the steerer and maybe 3-4cm down into the steerer
i can get the stem down about 3cm and then i feel like all i can do is twist but it won’t go in
there’s grease on stem and inside steerer
any tips? am i missing something?
Obvious question, but there’s nothing stuck in the fork?
stating the obvious here, but the steerer is long enough? and the expander bolt has been loosened?
no shouldn’t be, i cleaned it out a few weeks ago, i sprayed with degreaser and ran a small round brush down it, i’ll double check but i’m certain i would have found anything then
expander bolt is loose, its going in this, should be plenty of steerer there?
If the inside of the steerer tube has any lumps/bumps/burrs from previous contact with a silverback gorilla or stuck stem removal then this could be the issue. Hold the steerer tube up to a light source and look down it or lightly rub a screwdriver down the whole inside face to feel for bumps. I had the same issue after removing a shitty Ahead stem adapter and trying to install my Nitto technomic. The old stem left parts stuck inside and I had no choice but to use a gentle persuder to remove them. This left marks and burrs on the inside of the tube and had to wrap emery cloth on a dowel and sand back to sort it. A 1-2 hour job end up taking like 5-6 hours all up. I’ll only use quality parts in future.
just had a look down the steerer, almost blinded by the sun, the first 4-5cms looks smooth, but then it looks as if it might get a bit rough, so i’ll get the wet/dry out and rub it down a bit, see how that goes
i did read in another thread about the steerer tube being tapered so the expander bolt can’t fall out, about how far down might this tapering begin? this fork has a tab sort of thing, a small round piece right behind where a brake hole would be, could this be in place of a tapered tube to stop the expander bolt/wedge dropping out? and if so does this mean it may not be tapered?
thanks for the help, obvious or not,
do you have another quill stem to try?
An old trick, is to use a bit of dowel with some decent abrasive paper taped to the end of it it, masking tape will do and work it along the insides of the steerer to clean it out.
Used to have to this ever so often- especially with “winter” bikes in the UK, the salt would just rot and corrode everything.
yep, same issue
cheers, did this, jobs done, stem goes in this far, and then gets very tight against the headset locknut, but doesn’t need to go any further so thats it, cheers
This build is starting to look nice.
Hurry up i want to see it order some veloflex record clinchers for it.
going with these for now
i had some of them a while back. very good tyres, but puncture prone.
track only so shouldn’t be a problem, although i said that about the last nice set i had, no skidzzzz this time
Swap you a stem for a pair of the tyres? or a px at least???
really looking forward to seeing this one done, also loving the polished 1a stems lately, did you do it yourself?
my new stem still hasn’t arrived, should be this week, whats a px?
yeah, polished all myself, the bar clamp bolt was a real pain to get out, stem, post, cranks and hubs, 400/800/1200/1500/2000/buffing wheel/autosol, shit is shiny!