Do I need new bearings?

[swee'pea99]

Wondered why my steering was getting a bit sticky...look what I found in my headset:

 

[roley poley]

yes they look like fired air rifle pellets ..how are the cup and cones ?

 

[swee'pea99]

yes they look like fired air rifle pellets ..how are the cup and cones ?

Shot to hell. How surprised are you on a scale of one to 10?

 

[C R]

Wondered why my steering was getting a bit sticky...look what I found in my headset:

View attachment 568286

That's some damage, I didn't think the forces in a headset were that significant. Were those bearings particularly bad quality?

 

[Oldhippy]

You may need to replace them. 😁

 

[C R]

You may need to replace them. 😁

Nah, just a bit of careful filing and finishing with wet n' dry should have them working like new,

 

[roley poley]

never seen wear like that...I have had crushed ones and badly pitted ones but not with a score round like that

 

[Ajax Bay]

1

 

[C R]

never seen wear like that...I have had crushed ones and badly pitted ones but not with a score round like that

Yes, damage all the way round is surprising for a headset, I thought for headset bearings the main damage mode was brinnelling.

 

[houblon]

Wondered why my steering was getting a bit sticky...look what I found in my headset:

View attachment 568286

Hamburgers for miniature robots

 

[Cycleops]

They're sure not swee'peas.

 

[swee'pea99]

That's some damage, I didn't think the forces in a headset were that significant. Were those bearings particularly bad quality?

I haven't a clue. To be honest it never occurred to me that you could get 'poor quality' bearings. I (perhaps naively) assumed that the human race had basically figured out how to make bearings, and they were all much of a muchness. Maybe that was wrong. Having said which...

never seen wear like that...I have had crushed ones and badly pitted ones but not with a score round like that

...me either. Which leads me to suspect that I have screwed up by not replacing like with like. They looked the right size - ie, same size as the old ones - but maybe it was a metric/imperial thing, or something like that. Or maybe it was the cup & cone that were already knackered (they certainly are now ) and did for the bearings. The headset is probably original, which would make it getting on 40 years old. I've done a fair few miles on the bike since I got it five or six years ago, and it looked 'well worn' when I got it.

Anyway, the upshot's the same - I need to replace the whole thing. Having reached which conclusion, I suddenly had a dim glimmer of a memory of having found a headset in the shed a while back, and thought what's that doing there? So I went for a forage and whaddya know...

I do like a happy ending!

Of course it's not actually ended yet - I have to do the actual replacing. But I've done it before, so I'm guessing I can do it again. If anyone knows of a good YouTube vid for fitting headsets, I'm all ears...

 

[swee'pea99]

They're sure not swee'peas.

No puns please, it's been a fraught day...

 

[davidphilips]

Not %100 what you are looking for but should give you some usefull imfo, not a hard job so you should be ok, good luck .
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CINjuispG5g

 

[swee'pea99]

Not %100 what you are looking for but should give you some usefull imfo, not a hard job so you should be ok, good luck .
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CINjuispG5g

I quite liked the look of this one


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLE0hXqljt0&ab_channel=RegularGuyMountainBiking


tho' in my case the wood will probably splinter & fall to bits...