How to Remove a Mountain Bike Handlebar Stem

Video Transcript

So if you want to change your stock stem out for something different, first thing is you need to know what type of stem you need to get. Stems come in length between thirty-five and a hundred thirty-five millimeters. Most people use stems in the fifty to a hundred and twenty millimeter range. Your stock bike is about a hundred ten millimeters, about this length. Most people end up going to shorter stems for fashion reasons really more than anything. The other thing to remember is what diameter steer tube you have, if it's inch and an eighth, or inch and a half. This bike is inch and an eighth. You can tell because it's smaller than inch and a half. The other thing, and this can get people out sometimes, is the diameter of your handlebars. Recently, more and more companies are using a thirty-one point eight millimeter diameter handlebar, whereas, in the past, they've been using a twenty-five point four handlebar. You can see there's a big difference here. This is a twenty-five four bar, this is a thirty-one eight stem. This stem is fully closed up, and I can slide it right over. So, obviously there is a difference. So, let me show you how we're going to take this thing apart. We've got five millimeter bolts here that hold the face plate on. We've got five millimeter bolts here that hold the actual stem on. And then this preload bolt is a four mil. So, I'm going to start by taking out the preload bolt. This is easier to do when I've got everything on there. And remember, that's just keeping your headset adjustment. So. Then, second step is going to be loosening up the bolts that keep my headset adjusted and keep my stem in place. So now they're loose, and you can see how loose they were because just decided to pop out. So I'm going to just tighten up this bottom bolt a little bit, just to keep everything in place. And then, it's a simple matter of one, two, three, four bolts. And notice how I loosened those in a nice, consistent little pattern. So. Just spin them out. So. Try not to lose any of my bolts. And pop it out. Loosen this last bolt. And got our stem off.

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