[Ian Spencer]

According to Paul Grogan’s book, the front suspension screw on early bikes is a slotted screw and later they changed to a phillips head screw. I’ve never had a problem getting these apart and all of the bikes i’ve worked on had a phillips head. Now, I’ve run into a problem. I can’t get the screw removed from my speedsix! When I look down in the tube, I see neither a phillips or slotted screw head to work with! Looks almost like the screw head is rusted away to the point it has no features left. There was quite a bit of rust in the tube that needed to be cleaned out, I’m guessing it to be what was left of the screw head. Have any of you ever had this problem before? I’m thinking at this point that I will need to drill the remaining screw head out with a long drill bit… Any other tricks out there?

[Ian Spencer]

Ok, so here’s another twist. After some more cleaning and trying to inspect better, I turned the tube over and tapped it a couple of times on my work benck… out fell the screw head. What I was seeing was actually the BOTTOM of the broken off screw head, which made it look like it didn’t have any screwdriver slots. So, now I have no screw head and a front suspension that won’t come apart. Thoughts?

[kenneth buttterfield]

Ian All that holds the bits together is that screw head….try to dislodge the bottom section and with some tugging in a vice the two halves should come apart?…we have experienced similar problems…have you looked for some of the screw still in there?..you could counter sink with a special extended drill bit?…keep tugging !…ken

The worst speedsix problem I ever had was when a GB alloy stem fused itself in after decades of non movement…now that was tricky, but I found a solution….

[Ian Spencer]

Ok, thanks for the advice… I have tried to pull them apart with the vice… no go. These typically come apart easily once the screw is removed, so I didn’t want to go forcing anything until I got some additional advice. I can clearly see inside the tube where the remaining screw is and can’t see any rough metal flashing sticking off that may still be holding it together. Looks like a clean break. Are you sure there isn’t a threaded portion of the assembly still holding me together? Or, is it the threaded portion of the screw still stuck in that part of the assembly and just needs to be forced apart… I just don’t want to damage these forks in the process becasue I want to keep this bike with it’s own parts.

I also had a similar problem when restoring the Triang junior I salvaged from the trash for my son. This bike was in really bad shape, but I was able to save it. The stem was fused just like you described and I had to cut them apart. I was able to rebuild the handle bars by silver soldering a new main tube into place to match the one that I cut. I had to use a hack saw blade to cut through the remaining tube that was still stuck in the steering fork tube. Once I was able to cut through it, it pulled right out.

[Ian Spencer]

Ha! Ken you are a valuable resource indeed! I got home and went straight out to the shop. Chucked up the front suspension fork in the vice and gave it a good hard tug… went flying backwards about 3 feet straight onto my butt!!!

Now, where did that spring and retaining bolt fly off to! 🙂

[kenneth buttterfield]

Sorry Ian but I failed to warn you of the dangers of this method…..but somethings gotta give!
ken

[Author]

Posts