Threadless stem sizes? Adding an extra shim beneath stem?

Northwind

This is probably a fairly noob question, but is there a standard for the height of the stem where it wraps around the steering tube? I just wasted a chunk of this evening removing the standard bars and very heavy stem from my new bike in order to fit the stem and monkeybars off my old one... and then discovered that the stem's about 5mm less tall at the steerer than the Carrera one. Naturally I just added a spacer to get around this- raise the stem slightly up the steerer tube- but I was surprised that it didn't just fit. Is this typical?

In order to make it fit with the parts i have, I needed another spacer... The bike has 3 little spacers on the steerer already, 2 big and one small. I can't seem to find these spacers anywhere, but maybe there's a bit of jargon I'm missing. Can anyone suggest a place I can find one? In order to replace the one I just robbed off my brother's bike :roll:

nicklouse

it is quite normal. stems and headsets all have different stack heights.
headset spacers is what you need

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Cate ... goryID=205

Andy B

Stem's do vary in 'stack height'.

Headset spacers. http://www.google.co.uk/products?hl=en& ... 1&ct=title

Size should be 1 1/8"

Anonymous

needing to fit spacers is perfectly normal, it depends on the height of the stems steerer clamp and the length of steerer above the headset on the fork, as for spacers, they should be available from places like wiggle or crc or even you lbs, thats where i got my last ones from.

Northwind

Awesome, thanks guys. Really just finding my feet with this stuff, I'm a handy enough spanner but that's not much use when you don't know what anything's called

nicklouse

have a good look at the Park Tools webby