Dahon handle post repair

One of our Dahons broke down again recently: a split in the handle post, lower tube. It broke like this:

I removed the original cam and bolt, and tried putting a hose clamp around it and tightening as much as possible, but that didn’t work at all. Clearly the job needed a lot of clamping force to hold tight.

Here’s how I fixed it. First I drilled and sawed a longer split down the tube.

You can just see the extended slot and hole down the left side of the lower tube

Then I made a custom clamp, starting with 16mm square solid mild steel bar. I heated it in the forge, and fullered two Us into it, first with a smaller fuller, then this one which had very close to the same diameter as the handle post.

I cut the pieces off the bar. I drilled and tapped the pieces for 6mm bolts, and ground them roundish so they wouldn’t destroy anyone’s knee cap in a crash.

Not lightweight, but works really well.