steerer a wee bit too short..who wings it?

KeepItSteel

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Ive fitted a rigid fork today and love the look of it.
Trouble is even with a low stack headset the (ahead) steerer is coming up around 8-10mm shorter than it ideally should be.
In effect, the stems upper pinch bolt is almost grasping thin air.

Now im sure that im not the first person to be tempted to ride as is.. after all it does up nice and tight. The steerer is steel so can take a bit of added torque, surely?
Who out there would risk it, and how many of you are tutting and raising their eyebrows?
 
I would be to nervous to ride the bike hard offroad, had the same dilemma recently and opted to go for forks with the right sized steerer but it's up to you my man.
 
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I have a fix for this - it is by no means extensively tested, and I'm not claiming it's safe, but I did race over 40km of technical singletrack on a bike I used this on with no issues.

You need another fork to donate a small piece of steerer tube, enough to hold a star fangled nut and fill the gap between the top of your too-short steerer tube and the top of the stem, leaving a 3mm gap to allow for compression. Now get a long stem cap bolt, put it through your stem cap and thread it through the star fangled nut in the filler piece and into the one in your actual steerer tube, tighten appropriately and the tighten your stem clamp bolt(s) to the specified torque.

I probably wouldn't hit any big drops on this setup, but it has held up under some fairly rough trail riding.

Definitely at your own risk though!
 
Mechagouki has the right idea, I've also done this a couple of times and have ridden this fix hard enough to dispel any doubts in my mind. However 8-10mm is probably too small a size to fit a star nut in. Perhaps you can put a 5mm spacer underneath the stem and then add the extra steerer bit with star nut installed and still have enough on top to sink a top cap in. I'd just make sure that the split in the 2 steerer pieces was between the 2 stem bolts and not right on either.
 
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Use the quill to threadless converter if you want more peace of mind. However it will add a ton of weight to the front end.

Personally I'd cut down a small length of steerer from another fork and place it on top of the existing one, then buy something like an Azonic Headlock to keep everything clamped down nice and firmly. Headlocks are much more reliable than a star nut IMO, especially in a situation like this!
 
I would say it depends how much is in the stem now. Also what type of stem I.e if its a azonic short then 10mm prob wouldn't mater because it clamps all the way round for full length of 40ish mm so 75%, I ran one of these at about 10 mm short and did trials on it with loads of high drops and it was fine. I'm an engineer and I was happy it was strong enough.
BUT this is up to you, this is only my experience.
 
thanks for the advice guys, there are some good suggestions for me to try out.
does anyone have a length of steel steerer they could send me?!

Ill also look into the headlock solution. Can I use a standard top cap on one of these? (King for example)
 
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