Cinelli XA Stem issues

J

james_from_stoke

Retro Guru
I have a 10.5cm Cinelli XA Stem with cone expander, with matching 26.4mm Champione del Mondo bars.
I've had to retire them from active use on my Rourke because the stem is so flexy and creaky.
I was given them by a club member a year or so ago, and he raced them in the 80s, then left them in the loft.
The plastic cinelli logo is missing from the front, but I get the impression there is also meant to be a plastic insert where the stem clamps around the bars? I don't know...
Is there anything I can do to stop them creaking and flexing so much? I'm hardly a heavy rider, and the XA seems to have a reputation for being stiff, so what might be wrong with them?

Cheers

James
 
I think a wedge expander is vastly better than a cone expander personally , the cone only makes a small contact are between quill and steerer AND then allows movement at the top which can be noise , the wedge expander has much more surface area of contact AND also pushes the quill hard against the steerer tube . I assume the stem is 26.4 also ?
 
Cheers Griff, that plastic bit is indeed missing
although I'll try and bodge something out of some plastic washers to see if it works, before I actually buy one :)

All my other stems are wedge for that exact reason
I swapped it for a 10.5 wedge Sakae SR Custom, which is silent, and much stiffer.
Yes, the bars and stem are both 26.4 - this is an early one before they began making a 26mm model.

Thanks for the help
James
 
The plastic wedge will do nothing to stop creaking, it only fills in a gap. Are you sure the bars are the correct diameter? Have you used grease between the steerer tube and stem (you should)? Have you used grease between the bars and stem (you shouldn't!)?

A creak is due to two metal surfaces that directly contact each other moving slightly. Either because the fit between them is not correct, or the bolts that hold them together aren't tightened to the correct torque.

Or it might be caused by a crack...

Grease the stem in the steerer will, and tighten it hard.

Are you sure the creak is from the bars and stem? sometimes bicycle creaks don't always come from whre they appear to (BB, saddle, seatpost... etc)
 
The creak is definitely either the bars or the stem. I swapped them and the creak went away. I had first thought it might be the levers creaking on the bars, which has happened to me before, but it wasn't.
Everything is well greased, including the bar/stem interface, so i'll give that a good clean up and see if it makes a difference.
The stem is always very tight in the steerer. I grew up with threadless headsets, so I never completely trust quills to stay put.
Roughly what torque would you recommend - I have just gone with crank it hard with a long allen key, so is there a risk i'm overtightening?
 
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