Copied from another place, after someone's suggestion that the clamp was bottoming-out before full clamping force had been achieved:
Today's activities:
1) Remove the Brompification handlebar clamp and try to measure the width of the jaw - difficult as it has asymmetric legs and they have a radius with no definitive edge to measure from.
2) Place same clamp in 3" vice (the 5" one is somewhere under the stairs and I can't be arsed) and using a 450mm tommy bar, crush the clamp in the vice to try and reduce the width of the jaw. Using my digi-verniers, I may have reduced the width by 0.3mm. Or by nothing.
3) Replace clamp on bike and go for a ride which reveals reduced, but still-present chitter.
4) Dig out original Brompton clamp from storage, fit to bike, go for a ride which ascertains there is no audible reduction in chitter.
5) Remove Brompton clamp from bike, measure the width of the jaw and put it in the crusher.
6) Re-fit crushed Brompton clamp to bike, go for a ride which ascertains there is no further audible reduction to chitter. It is reduced, but it is still there.
7) Decide to re-fit Brompification clamp, and supplement it with MkI inner tube (see above) as this seems to be the only way I can achieve a chitter-free ride.
I can't help but think that there is a correlation between chitter manifesting itself, and the wearing-away of the powdercoat from the mating surfaces of the hinge - giving it a
metal-on-metal scenario - which on a three year old bike, which has hardly seen any use other than the occasional weekend - is probably about right.
Unless, of course, anyone has any better ideas.
