If UDC doesn’t warranty my FUBAR’d seat, I’m thinking about going to something completely different since this is the 3rd time it’s happened to me with a KH seat.
Does anyone know if the Impact Naomi is compatible with a Shadow Base?
Second, when I was trying to get my bolts out, I bent up one of the flanges on my Shadow Base pulling up on it trying to put friction on the nut and keep it from spinning (didn’t work ). It wasn’t bad-bad, but I did have to use a pair of pliers to bend it back straight.
Would this have enough effect on strength to worry about? I just don’t wanna be putting my weight on the handle and have it go POW! on me and crack/break right there (on the rear flange bolt hole). I don’t know enough how much abuse a piece of metal like that can take.
Killian, I find it very hard to believe that your saddle is completely toast. Just because nuts are stripped out doesn’t mean you can’t put new ones in. I can’t say for sure what you need to do without pics, but it seems like you could figure something out to get it to work.
I could probably get something to work using thru-bolts, that’s what I’ve done before, but I wouldn’t be able to use washers and my nuts’d have to be small enough to work with the Shadow base I’m using. When trying to get the cover and foam off to get the bolts out though, my foam got pretty thrashed as well.
But I was being careful. I only had the bolt threaded in about half way when it started spinning the nut in the base. I don’t believe it was cross threaded either since it seemed to be threading in just fine. I don’t really know what happened.
Looking at the seat, it is fixable. I could put thru-bolts in, tape up the tears in my foam, and put it all back together. But since I’m a little girl, it’s gonna bug me everytime I look at it. The uni cost me a grand, and I’ll be riding around on a seat held together with duct tape and bolts sticking out of it.
To be honest, I’m really not expecting UDC to warranty it. I thought maybe it was a common problem like when my Shadow Base broke, but after searching around it doesn’t appear to be. This leads me to believe it was something I was doing. I don’t know what, but I guess it must’ve been.
I just need to decide if I’m going to buy a whole new seat or ride around on this thing I guess…
It really stinks that we live so far apart, I’d try and help you out. Even though I’ve never had this happen this problem is the reason that I’m uncomfortable with using the newer style seat bases.
One way to fix it would be to take a small piece of steel or something and run it across the two nuts, attaching them together.
Another thing I might try would be running a wire through both nut holes and just wiring it on good and tight. It’d be ugly but who spends their time looking at the bottom of their saddle. This solution would be iffy though, you’d really have to wire it tight. And, if you are using a shadow handle on it would have to be on very tight.
Actually, after typing this up, I think I figured out the best solution. Combine the two and attach the nuts together using wires. I think the crude graphic explains it fairly well. Hopefully you’ve got a drill you can use for drilling the holes in the nuts. For wire, I would use aircraft grade safety wire but that’s probably not laying around at your house. Again, it’s too bad that we don’t live close, I’d be happy to work on it with you. It’s a real shame this happened on something this expensive.
I’m not gonna toss it. I’ll keep it around for parts or fix it up for a spare.
On my last seat that did this, I used some really long bolts, grabbed the end with a pair of vice grips so I could tighten the nut down, and then just cut them down with a hack saw. It worked alright, but cut up my hands.
You could also use some threaded rod to make a u-bolt and then use nuts. Not sure if taping up the foam by itself would work or not though.
Like I said, because I’m a priss, I just don’t want a seat that looks like garbage.
Did you see this post, I just realized it was showing up on a previous page and you probably didn’t see it. The solution that I suggested shouldn’t look any different then a normal seat
Oh, missed that. I didn’t realize this was a new page either :p.
Yeah, that’d probably work, I’d just have to find some wire that’d be stong enough to keep them from turning without snapping or bending on itself, but small enough to still fit in the holes that the nuts are recessed in.
We’ll see what I decide to do. I’m gonna sleep on it.
Much to my suprise, UDC warrantied my seat. Yet again, I’m impressed by their customer service.
However, since I was uncertain of whether they would warranty it or not, I went out and purchased all the stuff to fix my other one. I’ll fix it up and keep it as a spare, or maybe sell it down the road.
I re-built my 3-piece wheel last night and went for a nice 20km ride today. Started off on the street, a short section of footpath, about 8km of beach then hit the street again for the rest of the way home.
It most definitely flexes more with 24 spokes than it did with 48 but I think it is OK. I was unable to make the tire touch the frame while riding and was able to stand on either side of the rim balancing on the hub during the building process.
The real advantage was the ease in building the wheel with only 24 spokes. It went much faster as I was able to do a mechanical build since I adjusted the spoke pattern to match my spoke lengths
). It wasn’t bad-bad, but I did have to use a pair of pliers to bend it back straight.
