{"id":2265,"date":"2010-01-05T21:36:29","date_gmt":"2010-01-06T02:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/?p=2265"},"modified":"2020-11-14T09:01:30","modified_gmt":"2020-11-14T14:01:30","slug":"defective-fsa-os-190-stem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/2010\/01\/05\/defective-fsa-os-190-stem\/","title":{"rendered":"Defective FSA OS-190 Stem"},"content":{"rendered":"

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While working on my new bike I realized that a slightly shorter stem would be good, so I ordered an FSA OS-190<\/a> from Price Point<\/a>. When the box of parts arrived it had been opened (photo<\/a>), but as the thread locking compound on the screws was unmarred and there were no marks on the stem it appeared to be brand new. Unfortunately, after installing it I found a small crack in the stem cap, right near one of the bolts. Here<\/a> is a photo of the stem on my new bike, with an arrow pointing to the cracked area.<\/p>\n

Having torqued the stem bolts (cap and steerer) to FSA’s published 78 inch-pounds (FSA’s Stem and Post Torque Specs<\/a> – PDF) I don’t believe this was caused by me during installation. This is also a particularly inopportune place to have a crack, as it could easily lead to stem\/bar failure, which would likely result in a pretty bad crash. Even though it was relatively cheap and looks good on the bike when I request to return the item to Price Point I’m tempted to get a different stem, as I don’t want to risk there having been a bad batch.<\/p>\n

Currently I’m thinking of a Thomson Elite X4<\/a>, but now I have to decide on 0\u00b0 or 10\u00b0 rise. The aforementioned FSA is 6\u00b0, so 10\u00b0 shouldn’t be too different…<\/p>\n

UPDATE:<\/strong> Thinking about it, I wonder if follwing the FSA directions, which I followed, to “[l]ightly grease the bolt threads and under bolt heads” caused the problem. It’s my understanding that greased fasteners, particularly under the heads, are easy to inadvertently over torque, even with a wrench. This is because the fastener slips along much more than normal, and doesn’t provide the resistance that the torque wrench measures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        While working on my new bike I realized that a slightly shorter stem would be good, so I ordered an FSA OS-190 from Price Point. When the box of parts arrived it had been opened (photo), but as the thread locking compound on the screws was unmarred and there were no\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-acquired-things","category-cycling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2265"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19199,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265\/revisions\/19199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}