Date your Syncros Cattleprod

[RockiMtn]

Found this while searching to see if I could find a replacement quill bolt for a Syncros stem. Not sure of accuracy.

http://yoda.densan.ca/kmr/syncros.html

Its pretty easy to date the syncros cattleprod stem you own...

1990 : super-wide bar clamp (over 3"), and overbuilt (the 120 above is
290g).

1991 : Reduced bar-clamp width (just under 3") and some slimming of
material elsewhere reduced the weight of the stems to about
280g (the original weight for my 150).

1992 : A hole was added to the center of the bar-clamp for more
weight savings (now down to about 265g).

1993 : Switched to a Zicral stem bolt (with a finer thread pitch) in
place of the original steel expander bolts. Also deleted the
cable hangar under the stem. Drops ave. weight to 225g

1994 : Switched to a different color Z-Bolt (originals silver, new
ones satin-Ti colored) and added an extruded wedge with three
channels in it to reduce weight (down to about 220g now). First
appearance of the power-zit (a spot on the side where the weld
is built up - claims to strength the weld zone).

1995 : Same as '94 model year, isn't much left they can do to save more
weight except POSSIBLY thin down the aluminum some more (which
could be done if they switched from 6061-T6 to CU-92 to maintain
strength) and switched to Titanium bar-clamp binder bolts.

1996 : Cut away some of the material at the edges of the bar-clamp to
chop off maybe 5g more.

 

[FluffyChicken]

It reasonably accurate as I used to use it when I was first looking.
Most the catalogues are in the archive now (I recently added the 93)

It's DeeEight website on here and used to chat on the Usenet/newsgroups.
Plenty of other old tidbits on mags/brakes/manitou he has on his site. Nice to see what people thought waybackwhen. You should have a trawl of the old chit chat on the newsgroups using Google groups or similar.


Yours was the 93 as it had the silver zbolt
http://www.retrobike.co.uk/gallery2/v/M ... 6.jpg.html
The 94 catalogue had the technical details in iirc.

 

[skolioza]

I'm not sure about quill stems, but from memory all my ahead Syncros stems (vintage, with slanting cut top edge) had stamp with date, near one of handlebars bolt's thread

 

[FluffyChicken]

Cattleheads have 4 numbers on stamped on them. One on each of the bar clamp bolt bits.
The two next to me reading top two then bottom two are..
2 5
3 3

And
4 3
8 1

I know these Cattle heads started in 1993 but not sure how to read the numbers

 

[troje]

Interesting about both the prod and the cattle head.

the cattleheads I have lying here read:

4 4
7 5

and

- 0
6 2

and a third one without figures :?

 

[FluffyChicken]

Is the one without a number an original powder painted black one (1993) before they added the powerzit in 1994

 

[troje]

Is the one without a number an original powder painted black one (1993) before they added the powerzit in 1994

For sure it has a different paint finish than the numbered ones, it's not powder coated but more shiny and kind of a lacquer finish. It's similar to the paint on the Cattleprods I have.

 

[skolioza]

Mines two or three aheads was just stamped "99" so I was sure that's the year 1999...

 

[FluffyChicken]

Mines two or three aheads was just stamped "99" so I was sure that's the year 1999...

Ah I think that's the GT owned... possibly not Canadian but farmed out (I don't know)... models. So may have a different method.
Look an my hinged one (used to get the part from) and couldn't find any stamps.

 

[skolioza]

Shame I didn't make any picture of those...
They were definitly vintage, not modern stems, but the truth is they all had smaller logotypes on the sides - not as big and "fat" as the earlier models
Logotype looks like here, but they had classic handlebar clamp, not opened (picture found here on RB)