Good afternoon, my fellow unicyclists!
This here is the unicycle I learned on in 2021. It sat neglected for a long time thereafter. I didn’t know at the time that anything was wrong, as I had never seen another unicycle or unicyclist. The cottered cranks flop around, the seat clamp barely holds the seat in place, the seat is very uncomfortable. I am home from college over Christmas Break and I forgot to bring home my nimbus muni 24, so I am now trying to return this one from a somewhat rideable state to a better state. I shimmed the cotterpins with aluminum from a soda can. Unfortunately, the threads on the pins are partly stripped, so I had to get clever with washers so that the nuts had threads to grab. Does anyone know how I might fix the seat clamp? I have to tighten the living daylights out of it to get the seat not to tilt.
Also, any info about the history or brand of this uni would be great. All it has left is part of a sticker with “ARS”
Something to try on the seat tilt problem is to take apart and remove all grease or oil. Then assemble dry with some scouring powder cleaner on the surface that is slipping.
That makes sense. Looking at it, nothing about it seems very solid. I am amazed I learned to ride with the amount of slop that the cranks had.
My goal right now is mostly to have some unicycle to ride for the next couple weeks I am home. I find it funny that I feel so strange being so far from mine.
That’s what happens with cotter pins, things get loose and flop about, then folk try to rack them up to stop that and the strip the threads etc. What you used to do with these things is take them out and file the taper flat again, taking off any ragged part caused by the crank flopping about, then reinsert them and given them an initial tap home with a hammer, then tighten them up. Like you, I’ve also had to put a few washers under the nuts of these things to get some thread to get a hold on, that was a pretty common thing on old bikes I had. Also, if the taper of the pin isn’t flat it will probably start walloping about again as the aluminium of your shim deforms.
You should still (hopefully) be able to get cotter pins from a bike shop – they used to be very cheap and the easiest way to fix that issue for sure.
With respect to your seat, there are probably mating serrations between the faces of the clamp on the seat post and the one on the seat. These are probably just stamped into the steel, and with it moving about will have all rounded over to the extent that they don’t do very much. In addition to JimT’s suggestion of cleaning it, you could see if you could make these a bit “better” by trying to reinstate them a bit with the edge of a file (or a triangular file). To be honest that probably won’t work all that well, but it might be worth a try.
You could try putting a big ‘star’ anti-rattle washer in between at both sides and tighten that up so that it bites into the steel, but you may not be able to get one of a large enough diameter. Another solution in the same vein as Jim’s suggestion of scouring powder would be a smear of carbon assembly paste – but you probably won’t have a tube of that lying about – but if you went to a bike shop (to get some cotter pins perhaps) they might give you a smear of that onto your seat clamp
More permanent solution – put the seat at the angle you want and get someone to give it a tack weld (!)
Yes, old Sears unicycle, which were manufactured by a company who sold them under some other names, but I can’t remember the root company at the moment. Could be from Hedstrom.
I just looked; I have one that’s almost identical to yours! If you were somewhere nearby I’d say c’mon over and take it out of my garage. Please. Same saddle, with the base sticking out the front like a tongue. It’s turned around on yours, but it got that way by being the front!
Mine is in much better shape; it’s one of the ones somebody gave me after finding it in their attic or for a few bucks at a garage sale. It got ridden, but not as hard as yours. One difference is that the remains of a head badge sticker on it appear to be square, so probably not a Sears label, as yours looks to have been round.
hi. i also learned on a similar unicycle, in a circus studio. after a lot of trial and error, we solved the problems as follows:
the frame and seat post are drilled through. a bolt with a nut is inserted through. after this, the saddle will not rotate or change height. if necessary, several holes can be made in the seat post to change the height of the saddle (several holes are not recommended for aluminum posts - this reduces the strength and aluminum can break)
the cranks are set exactly 180 degrees, fixed with cotter pins and welded to the sleeve.
the pedals (if there are problems with them too) are also welded to the cranks.
after this, you will not be able to replace the welded parts, but there will be no more problems with the parts loosening.
That’s great, practical advice for keeping an old, weak unicycle serviceable for possibly many years. Also, it insures it will be unlikely to be repaired if one of those areas breaks; which hopefully allows it to be replaced with something more sturdy by then.
UPDATE:
Yesterday I had to find storage for (yet more) Christmas decorations. This involved pulling down the three low-end unis from their spot on top of the garage cabinets. I was then able to take a much better look at that old Sears-lookalike uni. It’s a Hedstrom! Sticker on the back; manufactured in Alabama! Hedstrom was a major maker of “juvenile bikes” and similar products in or around the 1970s. They created many of the cheap unicycles some of us learned to ride on.
Also I will note that this Hedstrom model is several notches higher-grade than the Troxel I originally started out on. It didn’t have the twisty-bearing-blocks problem, I’m pretty sure it DOES have ball bearings for the wheel, rather than nylon bushings that are liked mini-brakes, and it had a proper 3-piece crankset.
