Headset question - handlebars sticking straight ahead

[palincss]

Originally Posted by moose8

I just switched the stem on one of my bikes and when putting the new one on I noticed the handlebars really want to go straightforward - imagining straight ahead being 0 degrees, the handle bars turn smoothly 45 degrees either way but really catches while straightforward. It is a threadless headset. I didn't notice this before I switched the stem, but that doesn't mean it wasn't happening. Does it sound like the headset is bad? Or I adjusted it wrong? I loosened everything and it still catches going straight without the star nut cap or stem attached. It probably only has 1000 miles or so on the bike, so I would be surprised if it was wearing out. Thanks in advance

In other words, indexed steering?
http://sheldonbrown.com/brandt/indexed-steering.html
http://sheldonbrown.com/headsets.html

[jvp]

If you do the cup rotation "fix", you may want to rotate the crown race as well. I believe most of the brinelling occurs on the lower cup/race.

[David Kirk]

One other thing that can be done to extend the life of the headset when rotating the cups is to take the balls in races and replace them with loose balls. This is very effective as it greatly decreases the load on each ball and changes the spacing between the balls.

It's easy enough to do once you have a bag of balls the right size......with everything good and clean fill the cups with grease and press the balls into the grease. Load all the balls in and fill the cup. Once the cup is full remove one and call it a day.

This was super common with campy headsets when I was a kid and I can't tell you how many times we had bikes come into the shop with indexed steering that we fixed this way. Takes only minutes to do and will save the headset.

dave

[Ralph]

YEP....That's what we always did. Never considered throwing away a Campy headset until it was used up using non caged balls. 5/32's as I recall.

[moose8]

I took it to Harris Cyclery and they diagnosed it as indeed being the headset - they showed me how the ball bearings had worn away the coloring from the part they are in - they said the headset had likely been installed too tightly when the bike was put together initially, and that caused the indexing. They replaced it with a cane creek 110 I bought on clearance thanks to someone posting a PSA here and now it works great. They even did it while i waited, which was nice.

[AngryScientist]

my Miyata has a tange threaded headset installed, came with the bike as i bought it very used. when i built up, i pulled the bearings out of the headset, cleaned and greased everything, and put it back together. it has a pretty noticeable indent, or index when the bars are straight. the bike rides just fine with the index, cant notice it when moving, but it's definitely there. anything i can do about that short of replacing the whole headset?

[moose8]

I ran into this problem awhile ago and people had some ideas:
http://forums.thepaceline.net/showth...ndexed+headset

Basic conclusion was it was best to replace though.

[AngryScientist]

got it, i'm merging these threads now. pretty much what i thought. .

[AngryScientist]

good stuff here.

[pinkshogun]

replace the caged bearings with loose ball bearings. a new headset for 1" threaded bikes isnt expensive, look at the Tange Seiki Passage headset and make sure you get the correct size...crown race is either 26.4 or 27.0mm, cups are diff sizes too

[druptight]

Learn something new every day on the Paceline! Fantastic thread.