Removing a Stuck Seatpost
Davis and his successfully removed seatpost.
A seemingly not-too-uncommon problem encountered by bicycle enthusiasts is a stuck seatpost. This is almost always a consequence of not putting grease (or, better, anti-seize compound) on the seatpost before inserting it into the seat tube, and over time, the seatpost virtually “fuses” with the seat tube via oxidation.
My friend Dave had this problem recently with a near-new Ibis frame. He attempted the following (all of which were suggested on USENET newsgroups) to no avail:
- Lubricant (e.g., WD-40)
- Attaching an old saddle to the seat tube and banging it with a hammer
- Ammonia (as in Windex, to react with any internal rust)
- Dry ice (to chill the seatpost and make it contract) while keeping the seat tube warm (to make the seat tube expand)
He then came over to my home for the two of us to give it a shot. :)
The method we then successfully used was attaching a long (approx. 3-foot) square tube (e.g., from Orchard Supply for under $5) to the seat post via the seat post clamp:
Then, while Dave held the frame firmly on the ground, I used my strength + the tube’s leverage to turn the seatpost. At first the seatpost would only turn very “notchily”: the rotational action was not smooth at all. We then applied more WD-40, though, and kept turning the seatpost (via the square tube) in a counterclockwise direction. It then fairly easily came out. See the photo at the top.
Phil said:
Cheers for posting this… my next attempt was going to involve a stick of dynamite and a one tonne weight (Road-Runner cartoon style)… I’ll give this a go instead.
Jon said:
Last year I had a seatpost that was terminally stuck and I resorted to a somewhat different brute force approach to remove it: rope and pulleys from my rock climbing gear. In my basement I have two very strong tubular steel posts that I used as anchor points. I laid my bike on its side on a foam pad and anchored the bottom bracket shell to one post with a short length of 1″ tubular webbing. The seatpost was hooked up to the other anchor point with an 8:1 pulley system and static rescue rope. I used prussik knots as a ‘ratchet’ to capture the rope progress so that I could take my hands off the rope between pulls. After several pulls to take the stretch out of the system, the seatpost popped right out. Had I not had the rope and pulleys, your “long lever” method would likely have been the only other option.