I went to ride my 36er yesterday and found that it was squeaking quite a bit when I rode. It’s a metalic squeak, and it’s not a consistent sound. I checked all my spokes, pedals, brakes, couldn’t find what was making the sounds. I thought it might be the section on my KH seatpost where the silver mount meets the post, where there is a small pin going through. I was unable to replicate the sound while not riding though.
Any thoughts? I kind-of think it might be the seatpost. Has anyone had issues with this or found a solution for the little bit of slop that the seatpost has? I thought of maybe dabbing some gorilla glue in there. None of my other uni seatposts have a separate piece for the mount like this one has.
I had squeaking sounds in my QX 36er resulting of 2 different root causes:
1- Pedals: The bearings caught some dust and made horrible noise with trembling as well.
2- Disc Brake: This noise was definitely “metallic” and caused due to changes in weather (cold/ warm) - like a harsh violin sound.
It was small touching of the disc in the caliper. But it came and went by itself - without any need of actually fixing it…
Well I don’t have a disc brake, and I checked my bake pads there is no rubbing. So it’s not that. It could also be from the old-school bars it has on, but they seemed pretty solid when I checked yesterday. I couldn’t hear anything from my bearings when spun freely, but under pressure might be a different thing. Thanks for the suggestions, I wish I could go take a look now but I’m at work unfortunately.
That is a very plausible location to have looseness and noise. If you’re right, both will get worse and you’ll have to get a new seat post.
It’s unlikely that gorilla glue will do much. You may be able to put a Frankenbolt through the seatpost to solidify it; I did this on my basketball uni and it’s held up for months now. If you try it, keep your tolerance tight on the hole you drill, because if the bolt is at all loose it’ll wear and start squeaking again. (I used a carriage bolt, and filed out the opening to square on one side so it would be more likely to remain solid).
I never got really comfortable on my 36er anyways, so I might just swap out that post for a normal one and go without bars until I get comfortable again. The post is a rail type mount, so I can’t remove the bars without a new post.
I’ve made looseness in that place (saddle plate and seatpost tube joint) with two 25.4 KH seatposts: both fixed and adjustable one. But if you have such issue - you should feel slight saddle pitching movement.
I have a KH forged seat post and it (coupled with the impact Naomi seat) started squeaking last month when I was practicing bunny hops. Now I have to sit back in the seat more to get it to stop squeaking, which isn’t always where my center of balance is. Kind of annoying. I haven’t figured out why it’s squeaking. I just know it’s the seat and the silver part of the seatpost making the noise.
I helped a friend fix a KH seat post that was a bit loose and would rotate around the axis. We drilled a hole and added a “slotted spring pin.” The nice thing about this method is that the pin is driven into the hole (gently) and it springs out to remove any free play. Here is an example of the type of pin I am describing. We just picked up one at the local hardware store.
