Hi everyone,
I decided to get my bike (2000 M750) out after the winter last week, and I did a good inspection of the bike before I hopped on. Much to my surprise, when I was checking the front suspension for any obvious problems, I realized that my lower triple clamp was cracked on the side all the way through (looks like a fatigue crack originating at the casting line). So I hit eBay to find a used triple tree, and I bought a suitable used replacement for a little over $100. It wasn't a good sign that I needed a wrench to remove the old bolt in the top of the used triple clamp, and when it came out, sure enough, the threads were destroyed on the old bolt and the steering stem. Someone beat the top of it with a steel hammer when parting out the bike, which ruined the top threads, and then forced the old bolt through the screwed up threads to make things worse. I could buy an expensive tap and try to restore the threads in the steering stem, but I have a perfectly good steering stem on my bike, and if I could press mine out, press out the crappy eBay one, and reassemble with my steering stem and the eBay triple clamp, that would fix the problem without having to buy any new tools.
So my question is: does anyone have experience with pressing out the steering stem from the triple clamp? If so, which direction do you push? I assumed that you would push the steering stem up to remove it, moving it it about 2" until it is out the top, rather than pushing down roughly 10" until it is out the bottom. I tried that, without heat, and I think it moved a little, but I wimped out at around 1 ton of force when the aluminum was starting to bend (need to support it better next time, and use heat). However, after that, I did some internet research, and found that people with some Japanese bikes have to push it out the bottom (the opposite of what I was trying). So now I'm hesitant to try again with heat. Has anyone else done this? Any idea which way I should press?
Thanks!
Well, I answered my own question. I threw caution to the wind and pressed it out from the top (opposite to what I had been doing).
For reference, it took about 7 tons of force and about 10 minutes of heating with a propane torch, but it came out. There is a lip on the bottom of the steering stem, which prevents it from coming out the way that I originally tried. I supported it with a big socket that I had (supporting it as close to my forcing location as possible to reduce the amount of stress on the aluminum part). It makes a startlingly loud sound when it first goes, and then I had to keep going after that for about 5 more startlingly loud pinging sounds until it was finally all the way out.
I was going to comment earlier that although I had nothing to offer as far as a solution to your problem, I hope you contacted the seller and got a hefty % refunded to you. That eBay parts mob really burns my britches...buncha hacks selling roached out crap for big $$$. Pinwall, Rubbersideup and a couple others are cool but the majority of em are crooks imo.
Yeah that's a good point. I'll see if they will give me a partial refund. I don't have high hopes, though. This particular seller (parts2ride) is the first eBay seller that I've encountered which doesn't accept PayPal; they insist on direct credit card payment. I think I see why. A potential PayPal dispute gives the buyer a lot of leverage, whereas negative feedback only goes so far.
As XKCD notes, you could do this once every 30 times, and still have 97% positive feedback:
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/a-minus-minus.png)
I think I'll stick to Pinwall and Rubbersideup next time. I've also had good experiences with them.
You have a lot of recourse via just eBay IME. Doing the transaction via PP makes things easier under any other circumstance, but if you bought on eBay the process is the same. It isn't difficult and I doubt the seller will fight it.