I’m trying to fix up the Tbar, and have spent a few hours trying to get the reinforcement plate on. It seems that the plate holes are impossible to align properly.
I stripped a little bit of a screw hole in the saddle base trying to fix it up. Thankfully, it still works.
I’ve noticed that pictures on the KH website show chrome bolts being used. My bolts are black. Are there different year versions of the plate?
I don’t have a seatpost in these pictures, because it’s hard to take a picture with one. The saddle is a 2011 KH street.
The screws you see are inserted as little as possible, and the plate as far away from the seatbase as possible. When the plate is flush, the misalignment is worse.
Stiffener plates can be pretty tricky to get on. I put the plate on top of the string at the front so that I can maneuver the plate better. It’s easiest to start with the front two holes. I get both bolts started through the plate and the handle before I start putting them on the seat. Have the one that you are going to start with a little bit farther through. The hardest part, and the reason it seems like the bolts don’t line up, is that the fabric of the seatcover slides over the front two holes. You have to use the started screws to push the fabric back and then tighten them into the holes. It will still be hard to line them up because you can’t really see the holes once you get the fabric pushed back, but it’s not too difficult. Once you get the front two screws in the rest should be easy. I hope that helps!
I would start by attaching the seatpost. It is a bit of a fiddly operation getting all the holes lined up. The stiffener plate goes over the front of the seatpost, and you will need the seat cover on to get all the layers correct. The hard part is like unihopper described with the seat cover trying to creep over the front bolts. You have the front part right with the plate over top of the handle, just need to get those front two bolts in first.
On one of mine I had to file down my forged KH seatpost ridge- or the plate would have been sitting right on top of it.
It is very frustrating when it doesn’t fit- be patient. It fitted on the new handle for me. Good luck!
I’ve installed one (in late 2009). To make it fit, I had to put the seatpost under the seat first, then the plate “over” that. That made the holes line up, and looks like it might work for yours.
I second that. I just put one on my 29er in exactly that manner, (seat post under the plate). The seat cover got in the way of the 2 bolts at the nose of the saddle, but it went together with a little fuss. I love the handle bar!
Thank you for taking the time to reply!
I actually have no problems with the seat cover.
More pictures:
With bottom two bolts inserted.
With top 4 bolts inserted.
Picture shot right over the bolts, to avoid parallax error. I tried pushing the plate towards the front of the saddle, but this is the most it would go.
It looks like I may have to elongate the bottom two holes in the KH plate.
If that is truly the case, go to the KH website and use the contact email. Kris should see what’s up… He might have a defective batch, and may be able to nip it in the butt before many get shipped out to customers.
The curve of the seat based changed in 2009, so the plate will only work with newer KH seat; won’t work with Nimbus at all. Not likely, but maybe the bolt pattern on the new street saddle is different than the Freeride??
Also make sure you’re putting the plate on in the right order, i.e. at the front of the seat it goes on after the grab handle and before the touring bar, and at the seat post it goes over the seat post bracket.
The cover gets in the way, so it helps to get the front screws started first, use a pencil to push the cover out of the way.
I can’t do this from work, but maybe someone can provide measurements from their plate?
I thought the same thing, and seeing that the vinyl seat cover and seatpost (if kh) is the older type, I’m betting it is pre-09. The pics don’t show the base below the seatpost holes, so I can’t be sure, but that’s my guess as to why it doesn’t line up. And yes, you can certainly elongate the bracket holes to force a fit since the elongation is inward, and won’t reduce the space between the holes and the end of the bracket.
I thought it was only the new style bases that used allen bolts into captive nuts (like the OP’s saddle), rather than the fixed bolts with nuts on the outside.
If it won’t line up with everything in place and bolts in loosely then personally I’d just file the holes out a bit - they’re already oval anyway. But it’s probably worth pointing it out to KH in case it’s a bad batch, like somebody mentioned above.
Ok, I stand corrected, and see that it is indeed a new saddle. I just talked to Josh at UDC, and he said it could be either the saddle base or the bracket that was slightly off in manufacturing. He asked that you contact him, and he’ll take care of it. Call him at (800-864-2925)
Just to confirm: all KH saddles with the hex bolts and inserts are the new generation base. The Nimbus gel saddle also uses this base under license. So the T-bar fits both, but not the earlier (pre 2009) base.
It’s true that getting the plate on can be fiddly. Personally I make a “sandwich” with the handle, plate and L-brackets at the front, and push the bolts all the way through. Then I use the bolts to push the saddle cover fabric out of the way.
If the saddle cover fabric is getting in the way at the front, take the rear bumper off and loosen the drawstring so that it can move more easily out of the way.
Then screw the bolts in so they just barely catch, keeping the front bolts as loose as possible.
Then push the bolts through at the rear (front two bolts of the seatpost plate), and insert the bolts so they just catch. By keeping all the bolts loose, it’s much easier to adjust the plate position.
Once all the bolts are slightly threaded, tighten everything down.
Once you’ve done this once, it’s a lot easier to do it the second time.
On future saddle models I’m working on tweaking the saddle cover fabric so it’s more out of the way of the front handle.
Thank you for taking the time to come here. I’ve tried every possible way to screw those bolts in. Loose, tight, with seat handle, without, with seat post, without. I have tried just putting in the first two bolts in the handle, and manipulating the height of the plate, to see if was possible to get the bottom two screws in. I always find the bottom two holes are way too off.
Here’s a picture with an allen key inserted. It fits just right into the screw hole.
More measurements of the plate. Seems to be 128mm.
Did your reinforcing plate (and T-bar) come with longer allen key bolts? Using the longer allen bolts makes it easier than re-using the original bolts in the saddle as these will only just reach the front handle captive nuts.
In my experience it helps to put in the front two bolts loosely first as these can be tricky to get past the fabric, and doubly so when the others are done up tight. Then put in the seatpost bolts, then the two remaining bolts.
Yes, I am using the longer bolts. I cannot get the bottom 2 bolts in at all, with the front two bolts loosely inserted. Unicycle.kr will test, and sent me a replacement soon, and I will post an update here.
