I work as a tour guide using Bromptons as our transportation. The other day I had just met our lovely guests and had showed them how to unfold one. And suddenly the little knob for locking the front stem, just out of the blue, FELL OFF!
Unbelievable! I guess I had been a bit too rough, which created a crack, moisture or water got in and rusted through. And so on this random day it had decided to give up on me….. Anyway does anyone have an idea in how to fix this? Or has anyone had the same problem? I guess I'm probably going to just weld it
Apologies to everyone who saw the original post and had no idea what was going on because of no photos …….
by OneOfTheGreatest
4 Comments
It’s shows a lot of rust, so it is normal to have cracked, lack of maintenance will make this possible
To avoid this, a small drop of oil every 2 months would be enough in general, more often in harsh weather countries
To remove the broken part, a drill and a remove stuck bolts kit would do the job, YouTube is full of them… example: https://youtube.com/shorts/eIvVN3jGWbo?si=C8MXo_2r9Z97xXLo
i have seen that happened before. not common, but it happens from time to time
Mine broke without rust. just under 7 years. Brompton refused the warranty because if it was defect, it would have broken under a few years of ownership.
This part sees a lot of stress. Sometimes it’s misaligned, it gets abused, etc. Even on a bike that’s well taken care of, any time that threaded rod gets lateral force of any kind, the brazed joint and shaft will get stressed.
The only reason it rusts underneath is due to water infiltrating through a crack – this looks very much like a failure of the fillet braze.
The good thing is that’s pretty easy to repair.