A customer brought in a Niner chromoly MTB frame with a SIR9 seatpost that's seized, asking me to remove it.
Even after loosening the seatpost clamp bolt and shaking it by the saddle, it wouldn't budge at all,
but compared to previous seized seatpost cases, this one came out relatively easily. Apparently the customer had been applying Wako's Laspene (penetrating oil) periodically over several months, which I think made the big difference.
The seatpost is extremely long, but it's not so absurdly long that it's like a magic trick where someone swallows a sword longer than their esophagus — it shouldn't be longer than the seat tube itself.
Got it out!
From now on, your name is "99.0% Win Rate Guy"!
This name has nothing to do with actual probability — you get 0.1% added for successful extractions and 1% subtracted for failures. Ten wins and one loss equals a break-even record.
The seatpost length was 410mm. When I reinserted the seatpost, I felt it suddenly get much stiffer deep inside the tube, but since an adjustable reamer can't reach that far, I suggested to the customer that cutting the seatpost would be the better option if they didn't mind. They agreed to cut it.
There's a legend that a seatpost is safe as long as twice its diameter is inserted into the tube, but that's somewhat questionable. However, if three times the diameter is in there, you should be fine. This 410mm seatpost was uncut from the factory, but the manufacturer's official limit is 70mm from the end. Since this seatpost is 27.2mm in diameter, that works out to about 3.88 times the diameter. But honestly, having a 410mm seatpost sticking out 340mm at the upper limit and using it on trails rather than just cruising seems risky to me. It's also debatable whether a situation like "the seatpost is sticking out 340mm but the frame size isn't wrong" could even exist. The customer wasn't extending the seatpost that much anyway, and since cutting 120mm wouldn't cause the insertion length to become insufficient no matter how the current owner changes the saddle, pedals, or shoes on this frame, we went ahead and cut 120mm off.
Even after loosening the seatpost clamp bolt and shaking it by the saddle, it wouldn't budge at all,
but compared to previous seized seatpost cases, this one came out relatively easily. Apparently the customer had been applying Wako's Laspene (penetrating oil) periodically over several months, which I think made the big difference.
The seatpost is extremely long, but it's not so absurdly long that it's like a magic trick where someone swallows a sword longer than their esophagus — it shouldn't be longer than the seat tube itself.
Got it out!
From now on, your name is "99.0% Win Rate Guy"!
This name has nothing to do with actual probability — you get 0.1% added for successful extractions and 1% subtracted for failures. Ten wins and one loss equals a break-even record.
The seatpost length was 410mm. When I reinserted the seatpost, I felt it suddenly get much stiffer deep inside the tube, but since an adjustable reamer can't reach that far, I suggested to the customer that cutting the seatpost would be the better option if they didn't mind. They agreed to cut it.
There's a legend that a seatpost is safe as long as twice its diameter is inserted into the tube, but that's somewhat questionable. However, if three times the diameter is in there, you should be fine. This 410mm seatpost was uncut from the factory, but the manufacturer's official limit is 70mm from the end. Since this seatpost is 27.2mm in diameter, that works out to about 3.88 times the diameter. But honestly, having a 410mm seatpost sticking out 340mm at the upper limit and using it on trails rather than just cruising seems risky to me. It's also debatable whether a situation like "the seatpost is sticking out 340mm but the frame size isn't wrong" could even exist. The customer wasn't extending the seatpost that much anyway, and since cutting 120mm wouldn't cause the insertion length to become insufficient no matter how the current owner changes the saddle, pedals, or shoes on this frame, we went ahead and cut 120mm off.