I’m glad you got it to work. We tried sharpening the splines, roughing up the inside of the fork and no go. You ought to post up a vid (if you ever pull your stem back out) of exactly how you did it. I read and totally get it but visuals always help. There are a LOT of people with virtually worthless $75 stems out there. I just don’t get why they did them this way.

Man I just bought a 94 Haro shredder and same issue, footjam it and the bars spin. Stock fusion stem too. It must be a Haro issue. I thought it was because the age and bought a new Potts mod bolt but it has this same style wedge as your group 1. Guessing it’ll still have issues. Can you not just purchase the 30 degree wedge? Are there different stems that will work out of the box that I can get instead?

I definitely appreciate the feedback. So if I read your comment right, you’re currently running 2 reissue stems (like these) in 87 and 88 repop frame/fork sets and have not had issues. I am glad to hear that they are working for you because it sure has sucked for us not being able to use them. So in total we bought 4 of these repop stems. 3 green and 1 blue. 1 green and the blue one were never installed. The 2 other green were installed in 2 (2016) 1986 reissue master frame/fork kits which were my brother’s bikes. (I had used the Anlun stem since Haro hadn’t even broke the news they were making these when I built mine.) So new reissue stems in new reissue kits. After they started to spin, we checked for ANY contaminants like grease/oil from either the factory or assembly, paint overspray, metal shavings etc and cleaned the absolute hell out of all mating surfaces. When that wasn’t working, we roughed up the inside of the forks with a file to give it a little bite and did some work to the splines of the wedge to sharpen them up a bit. No go. We were already twisting off and stretching bolts by this time, so we started trying old bolts from SR Racing and GT stems. We even perfectly smoothed the contact area between the wedge and stem itself in case the was any traction between those two surfaces so that when the bolt was tightened, all of that force would be used to draw the wedge up and drive it between the stem and fork. They just didn’t hold. I mean we could do some tricks on them and ride them moderately hard but once we started doing foot jam tailwhips and or balance tricks on the front wheel, the bars would twist. I know the 86 has a pretty raked head tube angle compared to the 87 and up but they share the same fork pitch and in theory should be comparable. It is a mystery to me as to why you are able to get yours to work, but again, I say that I’m glad they are working. It’s been a bummer to pay $75 x 4 stems and then have to spend more on old stems at a premium just to make the bikes work. So when we built 3 88 repop Masters, we all just went with the OG Group 1 anlun stems with the old style wedge and they work perfect. No more messing around with having to constantly wrench on the bike. It seems a few people on the forums having been having the same issue. Yours are actually the first that I have heard of working. If you watch my vid showcasing the the 3 86s, you’ll see the 2 bikes with new green stems and one of them had tape on the bolt. That was to check if the bolt was backing out. Then look at the Haro collection vid and you’ll see the 2 bikes with different stems that were installed to make them work.

Yeah I used two black repops on the new 87 and 88 reissues and so far none have slipped. I do foot jams, and many bouncing tricks on the front tire as well. I never ride super hard though as I said I always kinda babied my bike but I do a lot of tricks and last time I had the bars move was on a powder-coated step that I had to sand down which worked. So yeah so far it has not come loose. I will test it out more in the Spring but right now it is still tight and still almost new as I just build the teal 88 so will ride it more in the Spring. But if it does come loose I might have an old Anlun I can use wit the longer wedge. I thought maybe the new stems were made with the shorter wedge to work on the new reissue or maybe they are exactly the same as the old 88's inside? I have no clue. But so far it has not turned on me. Also more weight and heavier may be a factor I am about 175 athletic build sometimes 170, but have ridden up to 195 with no issues. But I try to stay as light as possible to have less wear on the parts and axles bending. I seen 250-300 pound guys ride them also but they don't do as much, and not sure how long the bikes would last with that weight. But helps a lot to be lean on smaller parts. But I have a good amount of muscle as well as I workout a lot and average 175 and 170 in the Summer when I can ride more, and 185 in the Winter if I ride and am bulking etc. Also depends on what tricks you do and how often etc. So I guess a lot of factors are involved and they made for 110-120 pound kids but they were still tough. Never had anything break on my originals and I ride them a ton, I just bend some rims slightly doing high jumps back then and riding off loading docks and street but then went back to flatland mostly. But when you get down to it the stem should hold for the most part and if the old one does them something is defective in the stems or some of them, or indie the frame or both maybe but probably the stem wedge is at fault. I have been riding since 1984 and mostly stick to old school flatland that I always did, so I never wreck or have my bike come down hard I always sacrificed my body for my bike back then but rarely wrecked as I was very careful, but I jumped more back then as well and rode vert too. But yeah so far so good I will have to test it out more in the summer also I also kicked the tire pretty good to see if it would move but it did not, but not super hard. But if it does I will let you know and I will just get an Anlun one then if I don't have one already in storage. But I am glad you got the Anlun one to work at least.

No sir. The frame/fork kits were bought because I really didn’t want to have to pay so much for an original Master to thrash on. But supposedly the geometry and everything else is spot on to the original. I did notice through research in old mags and on the web that the new frames have stronger welds (welds on both sides of dropouts and I think the seat tube) but other than that they’re identical. The forks should all be standard 4130 chromoly and the same wall thickness so I don’t believe there is any discernible difference. The stem is definitely not like the original though.

That’s exactly right. Quality control was not the best. Even though the production was held up a bit because he had some issues with the manufacturing process. There is no reason they shouldn’t have gone with the og design. John Buultjens must have made the decision to go this route. He has changed everything that’s “reproduction” a little to stop people from selling repop as original. But that’s silly because people that know about these parts, already know what they’re looking for. They could have just date stamped everything and made them EXACTLY the same.

Northeast MotorCo I totally agree , John did an outstanding job with this stuff , but we all know what we are looking at , as soon as I took it out of the box , I said , ok that's different , but whatever , as long as it works I said , it's good to see I'm not the only guy that's into this older stuff , I still own my 90 team master , the 86 in question , and #216 DMC master , I guess it just goes to show Bmx will never leave you , even with responsibilities , morgage payments , crazy cars , family , I still love Bmx just as much as back in the day , tx for the reply bud .

Yup. That og is THE way to go.

Well I figured there’s not much they can do because it was less about the finish and more about the functionality. Whenever these were supposed to hit the market, there was a holdup. Something about quality control in Taiwan. I never heard what the issue was, but after having a little back and forth with John Buultjens about another Haro product I have come to understand that it wouldn’t do much to complain to Haro about something that they were (assumingely) aware of. I’m disappointed in the stems but I know Haro is too. What it comes down to is that I’m just glad that they have been trying. No other bike company is going as far as they are to get some of this old school stuff out there. Do the stems really work? No. Will they look good on a carpet queen? Hell yes. I really hope that they revisit this stem and make it what it should be. But when you look at what the Taiwanese bike manufacturers are making on a daily basis (box store BS bikes) and we want them to make good quality REAL bikes, it’s probably asking a lot. Looks like they’re doing ok with some of the new school stuff but I bought 3 of the 88 Master frame/forks and all of them have flaws.