[sittingduck]

With tiny little bolts to keep the stem tight to the steerer.

Pitch your bike or crash hard, and the headset gets loose. Try to torque the bolts too tight, they strip right out. I can't do a headlocker, I like my brake cable through the steer tube. After ripping the threads out of several mtb stems, I decided to go to a bmx stem, with REAL bolts in it.

I bought some 22.2mm bars, but didn't like the shape... so, I thought maybe I'd drill and tap my Azonic stem for bigger bolts. Not much room for that, so I measured my mtb bars and found 25.4 = 1". I put the stem in my mill, clamped the top down on some spacers, and bored it out to 1"!
Now my bmx stem fits my MTB bars PERFECTLY.

 

[TortugaTonta]

Your the 3rd person I've heard to have problems with azonic stems, myself included.

The funny thing is that I did the same thing with a bmx stem, only I did it on my lathe.

 

[sittingduck]

Your the 3rd person I've heard to have problems with azonic stems, myself included.

The funny thing is that I did the same thing with a bmx stem, only I did it on my lathe.

Ha! nice work... I have a lathe too, and considered using it, but had no clue how to fixture it, and doing it on the mill was a snap.
How did you set it up on your lathe?

 

[TortugaTonta]

Did the same as you, spacers in the clamp area, I just used a 4 jaw chuck on the lathe. The stem was a front load so it was probably easier to set up than the top load stem you have.

The other reason is that my mill is a pos, one day I will have a legit mill.

But seriously, how cool is it to have the technology to make what you need? I love that I don't have to leave the compound to go to the hardware store looking for stuff, I just keep material around to make most anything I could need to fix stuff.

 

[sittingduck]

Yeah, it's a beautiful thing.
Need a washers or a spacer? Some scrap metal and 5 minutes; done!

Four jaw, yeah I can see how that could be done pretty handily. Would have saved me spending 29.99 on a 1" drill bit too.
I wouldn't have wanted to take the 3-jaw I have on there off though, it's a bit of a pain to do on my old Enco.

 

[pnj]

GT Sucks!

how old is that stem?

 

[sittingduck]

LOL!!! Yeah, it's a bit of a dinosaur. I don't know how old it is, I bought it used about 3 years ago. It does have a big cutout on the bottom side, so it's not too much of an anchor.
I'm sure GT simply stamped their name on a generic stem though, it could very well have been stamped with something different had it ended up with some other company.

 

[w00dy]

Nice work, I did that with an old Hoffman stem for my do-all bike in college. Modded a couple of Primo Gorilla cups to work as a complete headset too. So much fun making your own stuff. Freeing too.
I've been enjoying this website a lot, you might find something interesting.
http://www.instructables.com/
Plenty of junk on there, but some genius hacks as well.

 

[pastcaring]

Nice work. Was talking about doing the same thing.
Guess my mate with the milling machine is gonna earn more beer!

 

[Bikael Molton]

that GT stem is actually a pretty awesome looking topload.

anyone looking for a good 22.2 stem... get a Solid.

 

[TRSKbikes]

that is a sweet bike.