Musclebike bars in a BMX stem... ?

[ParkRNDL]

It seems like every time I hack together a beater musclebike, I can't get the stem tight enough to hold those big old apehangers really tight. I'm not talking about getting air or anything, just tight enough that if I stand up to crank on the pedals a little, they won't pull back on me. So I've thought about using a BMX stem, the type with the 4 bolts that clamp the bars between two steel or aluminum blocks. Only problem is that most of them (the ones I've found on junk bikes, anyway) are designed to work with BMX bars that have a 7/8" diameter, without the little 1" diameter raised center section that muscle bike bars have for the stem to clamp onto. When I searched for stuff about it here on the boards, all I found was a link to a site that had some apehangers without the raised section, and I didn't like them... I'd rather use the old bars.

I guess I need advice on one of two things:

1. Is there some kind of voodoo to get an old school musclebike stem to hold old school musclebike bars tight even with a 200 pound middle aged guy yanking on them?

OR

2. Does anyone have experience with one of the BMX style stems made to hold 1" diameter bars, something like this one?

http://www.choppersus.com/store/product ... -BLK-1%22/

Do they work better than a "regular" stem?

thanks in advance for any advice...

--rick

 

[jplus]

hi, i did the same thing on my bike, i couldnt get the bars to fit so i took a "grinding"? bit and put it in my drill and reamed the crap out of the top of the neck, i thought i would need to use longer bolts too but by the time i got done it fit (and works) just fine, if you need me to post pics of the neck and what i used let me know, hope this helps