bianchi ev3 crack in seat tube

karlos1

i have acquired a bianchi ev3 and never noticed a crack in the seat tube. rubbed the paint off and its hard to notice but seems to be where the bottle cage thread is.
ive tried taking pictures and was told its not on a stress part of the frame.
any ideas on what to do ? whether to sell fix etc

Monty Dog

Bianchis of this era were notorious for cracking - demand for Bianchis sky-rocketed afters Pantani's victory in the Tour in 1998 but unfortunately the product quality went south - failures were due to combination of poor fabrication and poor quality control over the post construction heat-treatment necessary with the thin-wall aluminium alloy tubes. A friend was a Bianchi dealer at the time and I helped out - we saw them regularly. You have virtually no options - the very thin-wall tubes means weld-repair is almost impossible and if you did, the heat stress caused by the weld will further weaken the frame, as well as burning off much of the paint locally. Wall-ornament unfortunately is all it's worth.

karlos1

what about carbon wrapping

Monty Dog

Carbon-wrapping? Hadn't thought of that - try Carbon Mods for repair kits - at least it's keep it rideable. Also, drill a nice, clean, small hole at either end of the crack to prevent it propagating further.