smontanaro 

I have an Ideale 90 Rebour which is a bit too soft. I feel like I'm supported by the cantle plate instead of the leather. At the moment, I've swapped it out for an Ideale 80.

I went to tighten the tension bolt, but it is well-guarded by the nose cone metal, as this picture shows:



There's no way a Brooks wrench will fit. I also failed to get any purchase on the nut with needle nose pliers. Did Ideale make a special wrench for their saddles?

juvela

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wow, never encountered this snag on any of the T&B saddles have owned or worked with

wonder if they mistakenly used too large a nut when assembling the frame...

only thing can see would be to try bending the surrounding housing outward to give more room

perhaps rhm shall be able to give some of his sage counsel


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Vintage_Cyclist

I don't know if the bolt is the same size, but Brooks makes a special narrow spanner for their Sparrow saddles. If it's the same size, it might be narrow enough to grab hold and make small turns.

juvela

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checked some T&B models over at VB

here is a model 80-I with lots of room -

​​​​​


recalled seeing some where the nut flats exhibit pin holes large enough to accept something the diameter of a spoke

found this model 90 with hole in nut flat -



a solution might be to drill a hole in one of the nut flats to see if it would allow the nut to be turned with a pin of some sort. if successful, you could make a second and a thrid hole.

one possible snag with Brooks tool posted above is that T&B nut is sure to be metric while Brooks is sure to be fractional.

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rhm

The nuts they used on this nose hardware, when it was first designed, were octagonal; and each facet of the nut had a hole drilled through so you could use a pin of the right size as a wrench. Alas it looks like Skip got one with a garden variety hexagonal nut and... well, that's a bummer.

You might possibly be able to loosen it so far that you can get the bolt and nut out; then drill three holes through the nut; and reinstall... worth it? Eh....


Edit... eh indeed, Juvela beat me to it. Neither the first time nor the last for that to happen.

repechage

Minor chance that the adjuster bolt actually has an Allen head.

different make but I had a Brooks pro select that had that. Never seen since. I sold it off to an appreciative owner, it was Thick leather and drum hard.

Prowler 

Ok, I have NO experience with this stuff, just experience puzzling out the wierd things that engineers do sometimes. So, I'll ask: does the nut stay stationary while your turn the threaded shaft out to push the nose away, tightening the leather? That pin through the front end of the shaft looks like it could be turned bit by bit to achieve this. Oil the threads well, loosen the shaft first to ensure its free then tighten it as needed. Hmmm?

As my wife is used to hearing - "I have no idea but I'll either fix it or destroy it."

oneclick 

Can you Dremel a slot in the threaded end of the screw?

(I keep any of the Dremel grinding disks that survive to be small ones for use in tight corners like this.)

ThermionicScott 

I'm impressed that the previous owner(s) were able to advance the nut that far. Interested to see this get resolved.

rhm

Sorry, but that's not going to work. The nose assembly is designed so that the bolt does not turn. There is a groove machined into the side of the bolt on both sides, so the bolt is approximately figure-8 shaped in section, and the corresponding holes in the nose piece and shackle clip are the same shape.

repechage

The small amount of the top surface of the saddle visible on the side indicates to me the party may be over- Time to send it off to RHM for a new top and a rework of the nose mechanics.

That nose stamping appears blacksmithed compared to my other Ideale saddles.

smontanaro 

Thanks for the ideas. I'm headed out of town for a few days, but will need with this when I return.

@rhm Does it seem to you that this bolt has been tightened a bunch before? All of my Brooks saddles have no threads exposed in front of the nut. I was surprised to see how many threads were exposed in front of the nut, but the saddle doesn't exhibit any of the usual side effects of being overtightened (torn rivet holes, splayed skirts). Maybe Ideale centered the nut on the tension bolt or just let it fall where it may?

rhm

I'm sure it's been tightened. Leather stretches, sometimes a lot, sometimes not a lot. It looks to me like your saddle has stretched an inch or so.

The real problem, I think, is that someone beat the nose piece together sideways in order to narrow the front of the nose. I don't have an Ideale 90 to compare to yours, but I have an Ideale 92 'diagonale' that has (I think) the same nose hardware. Photo below. The outer width --measured from the head of one rivet to the head of the other-- is 42 mm. There is 6 mm space on either side of the nut you're trying to turn. I think what you will have to do is: wedge a big flat screwdriver blade next to the nut and bend the nose piece out. Do this on both sides until you can get your wrench in.

The width of the nose of a saddle is not, I think, a crucial dimension; but evidently some riders like a pointy nose. I have an old Ottusi-modified Brooks B17 and it, too, has a pointy nose; to make it pointier, Ottusi filed the shackle clip and crushed the nose piece sideways. Why this was desirable is unclear to me, but it was clearly done intentionally (and took some doing to get it done).

SwimmerMike 

I have two Ideale 90's and just went out to the garage to check the nose hardware. They are both identical to the picture @rhm posted. So, I concur, it looks like the nose was "narrowed" and that "denarrowing" it would be the approach I would take.

ofajen

Been there, done that. I happened to have an old, open end spanner that was the right size for that nut and ground down both sides to make it thin enough to work. Then you still have to put it in at an angle and exploit the flexibility of the saddle and nose hardware to get one sixth of a turn at a time.

The other problem you will need to deal with is that you are about to the point that it will deflect left or right unless you put another nut on the inner end of that bolt to stabilize it. If I had to guess, I’d say you will be using a different or re-topped saddle pretty soon.

Otto

ofajen

Here is that wrench.