madpogue 

Also known as Matco HS45, Snap-On Blue Point HS-13. According to the instruction on the guard, it's set up to cut on the pull stroke.

albrt 

Another tip from dddd in an earlier thread about one of my stuck seatposts - you can use a bent, sharpened spoke as a probe to make sure the cut is going all the way through the aluminum at the bottom of the seatpost. The cutting leverage is much less at the bottom, so when it seems like the saw blade is all the way through, it probably isn't. It is surprising how helpful it is to be able to grok what is going on down in the tube using the spoke-probe.

dddd

Thanks, albrt; that really is one of the most important "deciders" of how well that the job goes.
I've used a dremel wafer disc to carefully sharpen those few teeth out at the tip of the (usually long) blade, it's where the cutting action is (still won't cut into the steel seat tube).

xiaoman1 

Really interested in this project, any updates?
Best, Ben

AdventureManCO 

There's some good news and some bad news. More to come...

cudak888 

Give us all the juicy bad news!

Your pain, agony, and suffering are what we come here for

-Kurt

kunsunoke 

It's not a Vitus.

AdventureManCO 

No, please save all that for the next mega Huffy thread

Schweinhund

I blew up not one but two techniums back in the day. No bonding for this old fart.

AdventureManCO 

Working on tree fort right now, update will come later tonight. Victory is not without sacrifice.

Mad Honk 

Ah Yes! Trees are a wonderful thing when working with block and tackle set ups. I have seen many a race car frame bent back into shape with the same method. I am partial to the multiple pulley set ups as the amount of pull will be exponentially higher with about 200 feet of rope. And with that much rope we can use Cuda's "more door" to put a significant amount of pull on the seat post. Har! Smiles, MH

AdventureManCO 

jdawginsc 

Is it good news or bad news that we are not seeing the frame...?

GeezyRider 

Looks like the previous owner may have tried to use a saw blade in an attempt to remove it.

Mr. 66

I see slash at the bottom, but not at the top. I'm not sure that's a good sign.

AdventureManCO 

Okay, morning update! Sorry had to 'cliffhanger' it for a moment there

Post is out! But not without slight consequences!








The bad news is that this process (ahem...me) scored the inside of the seat tube. Good news is that the bike is fine, and I'm not sure one could really be successful at this process without at least some scoring of the tube?





Now, before any of you jump up and down w/ thinking it was a 'rush job', this one was about technique and not attitude. But! In thinking about how I went about it, I'm struggling with coming up with how I would have done it differently, at least using the same technique.

I did this over several days, so it wasn't rush. I didn't use power tools. In fact, I took the thin blade out of my hacksaw and held it by hand, and made the cut all with human power - which was not a fast process, because if you pushed too hard, the blade would just bend and twist, so I figured that would give me a bit of a buffer. I also took the suggestions of others in this thread - I decided to cut the bottom part of the post (the stuck part), and angle it ever so slighly away from the top of seat tube opening, so that the cutting action was focused around the stuck part, and utilizing just the very front tip and teeth of the blade as the cutting action (more of a 'gnawing' at this speed). Wasn't rushed...took me hours. Used penetrant oil. I even made the tool folks suggested out of a sharpened and bent down spoke as a 'feeler' to tell when I'd gotten through the alloy. I felt the difference between the aluminum and the steel, and moved up to a new section when I first started feeling it.

But still it left a little groove there in the steel. Now its not much, mind you, but the diameter of this steel is not much, either!

So, pretty happy the post is out, and also pretty disappointed I somehow didn't stop in time, given all the indicators I had working w/ me. Maybe this is just par for the course? I showed it to Jeff (DD) and he seemed to think it wasn't a big deal. I think in time I'll agree w/ him, but sort of had that cloud hanging over me when I saw (sawed?) it. In any case I cleaned it up and threw just a tiny bit of JB Weld in that spot and w/ sand flush. Again, hoping it's just cosmetic and since it isn't a real high stress spot, I'll just make sure the next seatpost that lives there goes a bit past it. In time, perhaps I will also grow, and learn to more quickly count my blessings - it could have sawed all the way through and didn't! I'll take it.

I don't think I will use this exact technique again. Pretty sure I'm just going to jump to lye. But! If I did decide to use the sawing method, I would create a tool that was round, with a slot to hold the blade and make it w/ some recessed grub screws, so that you could take a measurement of the seatpost thickness, then replicate that thickness w/ the amount of blade sticking out of the tool, verifiable by calipers. That way, when you reached the end of cutting the seatpost, the blade would be prevented from cutting further. That's the only way would want to use the cutting method again.

I'm just glad this happened first on the Merz Allez and not one of my beloved Huffys



ALSO! I started playing around w/ the stuck, frozen stem. Much to your not-knowledge (?), I had been soaking the stem for a long time, and thought I'd give it a go to break loose.





The technique I wanted to use, the one that helped me free my stuck stem in the PX-10, would not work this time, because it requries access to the bottom of the stem, up from the steerer tube. I couldn't get the wedge out of this one - there was some kind of goofy stuff in the steerer tube (it almost looked like the remnants of some other stuck stem that was welded to the side of the ID of the tube (really weird)...in any case, it wasn't coming out the bottom for me to gain access to.

So, I'm glad that cudak888 posted up his prying method using the handlebar clamp of the stem. I had this giantic 30+ lb prybar, and though it would do swimmingly. I clamped the fork crown in a vise (using rags and wood blocks of course), and went to town!





Good news is, I think I moved it a hair. I had quite a bit of leverage w/ this bar, and I did get it to clock about 3-5 degrees.






So I put more penetrating juice down that and will let it sit a few more days and see if that assists with the process.


So far, its been quite the adventure. If you don't end up almost destroying your bike, multiple times, when you are rebuilding your project, you're not really living.

jdawginsc 

'Tis but a flesh wound.

AdventureManCO 

albrt 

I'm pretty shocked to see the cut into the seat tube. I saw no hint of that on the two quality bikes that I used a vertical hacksaw cut to get the seatpost out. I was applying very little pressure to the blade and was only leaning the blade slightly inward, away from the top of the tube, so our techniques were a little different in that respect. My seatposts were also inserted much deeper, so the angle was necessarily shallower.

When I did it, the blade was cutting along more or less the whole length of the post, and the bottom was the last part to go all the way through. The aluminum is soft enough that the teeth can do the work without much pressure. I think the small amount that I was leaning the blade away from the top of the tube was not quite enough to counter the leverage effect that reduced the force at the bottom of the post, so the bottom part took the longest even though the blade was leaning the other way.

xiaoman1 

Ok, Now back the the Porsche back story.............
Best, Ben

AdventureManCO 

It's all good Moral of the story is that it takes a bit of time to get good at something, so I probably should have expected this as the result, seeing it was the first time I did something like this. I'm sure if I were to attempt this on more bikes, my technique would get perfected as I would have more practice. And, I'm sure there are plenty of other bikes in the world that have rust and pitting that are far worse than this little groove. From a purely technical aspect, its not really anything to be worried about. From an ego standpoint, probably a little bruised But that's how we grow.

After trying both, and seeing what potential this method holds, I still like the idea of the lye method better, at least for lunkheads like me, since it is absolutely foolproof for not damaging the steel frame, 100% everytime.

But the important thing here is...the Allez will live.

Now, just gotta get that stem out.

AdventureManCO 

Right??

cudak888 

You dodged a near bullet and got away with it. Have a beer, congratulate yourself on a job well done, and forget that it is there.

Don't wait for the penetrant. If it moved once, it'll move again; just alternate your direction and push/pull like it owes you all you spent on the Huffy. It'll pop again. Alternate back. Continue. You can do this. This isn't the bike shop anymore, this is the gym.

-Kurt

AdventureManCO 

Minion1

These threads really provide the go-to quotes

"it'll move again... push/pull like it owes you all you spent on the Huffy".