Standard vs. Deep-Cup Headset Question

[Red Tornado]

Bringing an old/used/slighty abused (mid-90's) MTB frame back to life for occasional use as a SS. I can push headset cups into both ends of the head tube by hand. They don't just drop in, but I can seat them with my bare hand. This frame has seen many headsets/drivetrains over the years and I can tell you the headsets were initially installed with a block of wood & hammer, so I'm not surprised the cup interface areas ate loose and/or ovalized maybe.

Anyhoo, I'm looking at either trying a deep-cup headset or I'm also told that Loctite makes a product that helps tighten up bearings/etc. that have lost most of their press fit.

How deep are the deep cups compared to standard cups? There's a noticeable step in both ends of the head tube where the cups go. Would a deep-cup headset go past this area and have too much press fit? Would I need to have the head tube reamed a little deeper? Guess I need to measure how deep the "steps" inside the head tube are and go from there? Anyone tried this Loctite product and had any success with it?
Frame is a Giant ATX AL1.75.
Fishing for some advice here as besides the HT issue, frame is in good condition and would make a nice "retro" dirt bike to take to the trails every now & then.

[dsillito]

Hi R.T.

I don't have any experience with either the Loctite or deep headset cups; this sounds like a situation where I'd use a ghetto-fix with what I had on hand.

Usually, for me, this would either be wrapping Teflon tape (from my plumbing tool box) around the cups, or else try some foil tape, like the kind used to seal duct work. It will probably tear up a bit where the contact is tightest with both of those though. Since it is a "second life" kind of restoration, as long as the cups stay relatively immobile, and are still square to the head tube, that would pass my functionality test.

I suppose you could cut the deep headset cups to whatever depth the machined "seat" was within the head tube, so they didn't extend beyond, and be too tight a fit.

Good luck.

[Red Tornado]

Ya, I thought about using electrical tape or getting some .001" brass shim stock f/work and cutting it down to wrap around the cups.
Not sure I'm committed to that route yet, but thanks for the feedback. Looking for something that will last for a while, but where I could still remove the cups if necessary.

[tuscanyswe]

Im sure there are others but the ck steel set looks to be around 3 times the normal length or something like that by just looking at the pic.

https://ck-wordpress-media.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/steelset_silver.jpg

[dsillito]

Yeah...the requirement to be able to remove the cups negates a whole lot of easy options, like just slapping in some epoxy of some sort.

You know what would be cool, although I don't know how you'd do it (and it would likely be ill-advised with aluminum), if you could get a fat tapered steel rod that was the inner diameter of the cups, and just tap it into deep cups, from the extension end...not the bearing end, if you see what I mean. You could potentially widen (stretch) the diameter of the press-fit sleeves ever so slightly, while not affecting the bearing seat area. Surely you could get that tiny bit without splitting the aluminum.

Again...this is all a thought experiment, as it would be a lot of trouble to go through, just to find that it didn't work, and start a new thread regarding how to get an aluminum headset cup unstuck from a big steel rod without mangling it. :crap:

[PacNW2Ford]

I think you would want to approach this another way, e.g. increasing the diameter of the headset cups instead of the depth. Chris King used to make oversized cups that could be ordered. While this could be more expensive than you want to invest in an old frame, it is a solution. I'd call them to see if this is a option.