I’ve been wrestling with this stuck seat post for days. Decided today to cut it out but I’ve realised it’s solid throughout! Is it likely to be solid the whole way down, or might it hollow out? I’m cautious of cutting down further in case I don’t leave myself enough room to grab on to it.
Thanks so much!
by Ron_Ward
25 Comments
tap it with a hammer?
This might not be a seat post but a piece of rod someone decided to hammer in. Drill through it to insert something solid that you could rotate it with.
It’s hollow further down, often the head of a seatpost is a solid slug bonded into a tube
The best way to remove a stuck seat post is with an impact hammer. The kind that attaches to a compressor get a cheap saddle or one that you’re willing to potentially sacrifice. Attached securely to the post. Wear eye safety glasses and hammer that sucker right out.
Edited: I see after reading some of the other comments here that this may not be a seat post. And you may have difficulty attaching a saddle to it. However, if you could somehow attach something to it that you could use to hammer this up and out that would be the best bet
Depending on how hot it is where you live, if you can sit it in the sun for several hours during mid morning to midafternoon you might get enough expansion of the frame to make it a wee bit easier to pull the post out; assuming it’s aluminum frame and steel post (post or rod or whatever). You’d be surprised how even a little bit of expansion and some muscle could work while the same expansion isn’t going to move the post when sitting. I would use WD-40 or another lubricant and saturate around the poll and let it work its way down as it bakes. Then try twisting and pulling. If it wasn’t a rod hammered in that might do the trick.
Drill a hole down through the centre. Then get some vice grips and a hammer.
Attach a crimping pliers to the existing pipe, leave them sticking out to the side and try to hammer the pipe out with light blows from below on the connection between the crimping pliers and the seat tube with a rubber mallet.
Looks like a steel frame. Gallium would make quick work of that seatpost.
You can try hitting it with a can of computer duster upside down to freeze the aluminum. Might make it contract enough to free it
First remove the seat post clamp, then what I would do is drill a hole across that metal rod and insert another sturdy piece of metal and try to rotate it. You can also apply oil or pb blaster
Removing bottom bracket and dripping some penetrating oil down the tube and letting it sit for a while might help.
Big thing is materials involved. May have fused to frame. Is it steel/steel, aluminum/steel or aluminum/aluminum involved? Or something else?
You could also drill a hole and put a rod in it and try to take it away.
Drill a hole through, from the side, all the way through to the other side. Insert an old screwdriver and start turning to make it loose
Drain cleaner removes aluminium parts from steel frames in like 1 week, the hotter the quicker.
Also Strips paint beware
Have you soaked it in WD40 for a long time? And if you have a bench vice clamp the post in that, and use the frame to twist it off.
Or a gigantic pipe wrench.
This is the ultimate tool for it:
<https://youtu.be/mJ8R_Dqk1u0>
You could make a sword out of it
Take out the bb and fill the seat post with oil upside down to try to penetrate. Leave it for a few days and see if it will budge. Then repeat.
I’ve had good luck freeing stuck seatposts by bashing them down into the seatpost with a hammer. Just mark a line on the post with a sharpie a few mm above the top of the seat tube and bash away until the mark is gone down to the seat tube. By that point you’ve broken the galvanic corrosion and then you should be able to pull and twist it out.
Ammonia solution
Is it alloy or steel? Magnetic? Caustic soda, couple good YouTube videos on removing a statist with it
It looks like a Steel frame and Aluminum seat post. Since the coefficient of thermal expansion of Aluminum is about 2x Steel, you might have good luck freezing it with ice or dry ice. The Aluminum will shrink more than the steel frame.
If you can clamp the remaining seatpost in a vise or just a very sturdy workstand you might be able to pull on the bike to dislodge it.
I remember this one time where my only option was to hammer down the seat post deep into the tube
Put the seat post in a vice then try to use the whole bike as leverage to turn it.
You’ve probably already tried this but it’s my go to trick for stuff thats stuck