Tapered steering head bearings -- worth it?

[Ocean1]

Won't the thickness be important of the washer though? Or will I just take up the slack when I torque the nut?

You need a heavy-ish washer under the nut. Whether you buy the kit or not I'd assemble the bearings onto the stem and fit it into the head.

Look at the stem thread, does it extend down to the top bearing? Put the nut on and do it up finger tight, is it touching the bearing or bottoming out on the top of the stem? That will tell you what you need by way of washer thickness.

[xwhatsit]

Ah thank-you, I think I'm beginning to understand the picture now. Cheers for taking the time to explain things slowly

I'll make a couple of phone calls tomorrow then.

[Max Preload]

You need a heavy-ish washer under the nut. Whether you buy the kit or not I'd assemble the bearings onto the stem and fit it into the head.

Look at the stem thread, does it extend down to the top bearing? Put the nut on and do it up finger tight, is it touching the bearing or bottoming out on the top of the stem? That will tell you what you need by way of washer thickness.

If you're doing it like this you also need to factor in the thickness of the top triple clamp where the nut flange meets it.

You'll usually be ok with slightly deeper bearing assemblies, but those diameters don't match anything in my SKF general catalogue for taper roller bearings. You can probably sleeve the cup seats down to the right size and the stem up to the right size but thats more hassle than it's worth.

[Pixie]

So anyway I'm finally getting around to buying this stuff. I've been getting by with tightening up the old worn ones but they're pretty shagged and I need to get on with it.

The kit is called SSH750. Cheapest I've found is David Silver Spares, even though they just put the price up to 27 pounds -- bastards! So I'll probably order from them.

But I wondered, upon doing a quick Google for `SSH750', that given that the specs of the bearings are all over the place, do I have enough information to go down to Saeco et al and give them these numbers and they can give me what I need?

SSH750* 26 x 48.5 x 15.2mm 30 x 50 x 14.4mm

Actually on another site I got this:

SSH750 Upper 48.5x26x15mm Lower 50x30x14.5mm

Slightly different but is it close enough (15.2mm vs 15mm, 14.5mm vs 14.4mm)?

The other thing is, either way, these don't come with the bottom dust seal usually do they. I've heard people referring to reusing the existing seal but I dunno if it'll be OK after a quarter of a century. Will this be a standard sort of seal I can pick up from other places? Will the official Honda seal (providing I can get it) work with tapered bearings considering the original bearings are ball bearings?

Sorry for all the silly questions, I find it a bit confusing, haven't really delved inside that area of my bike before.

Oh yeah, I'm going to do the swingarm bushings while I'm at it. They're going to be a bitch to get out, aren't they

Try Bearing Supplies Ltd 09 837 5779

They bought out A&E bearings who were very bike friendly.

I bought steering head bearings for the bandit and they were able to supply the seal as well.

As for correct tension,I've seen 2 techniques descibed in bike manufacturers manuals:

1.Torque the nut up to a set value and back off a fixed amount.

2.Torque the nut up till the initial movement with the wheel raised off requires a certain force to initiate - measured with a spring balance.In the case of the bandit around 1 kg on the end of the handlebars

[xwhatsit]

I ended up ordering the SSH750 set from David Silver, they had the seal as well. Saeco didn't have an appropriate size when I rang up.

In my Haynes it's particularly vague with the ball bearings (which are even more important about torque, no?), saying that while the steering shouldn't flop from side to side, it should have some resistance with the wheel off the ground. Nice In any case it's got one of those funny nuts you do with a C-spanner, so I'm not sure how I could get my torque wrench in there anyway.

[FROSTY:Me]

Dude if ya want help setting the head bearings come see me Ill sort it for ya.
Im pretty sure you have already been told the big thing with head bearings is that they get a notch or probably best said as a dent when in the straight ahead position.
You feel it as a definite clunk as you turn the steering away from the fore/aft position in either sirection.

When fitting tapered roller front bearings Id fit them. Crank them down so there is slight resistance to turning. Ride the bike for 200km then reset the bearings--they tend to settle a little.

If planning to replace the swing arm bearings I would start NOW using penatrating oil to start loosening up the bearing shells.

One last thing. To make the job easier fitting SH bearings I throw the bearing in the freezer as soon as it arrives.leave it in there a day or two.

[xwhatsit]

All right! My old man was in the country so I flogged him to help me with it.

Did the fork seals while we were at it.

That freezer trick made my life very easy, although had to wait for the bottom bearing (not the cup) that fits on the stem to warm up as it's an outside fit, not an inside fit.

Now the first problem was there was no seal with the kit, and the seal I'd bought, while it fit under the old ball-bearing cone on the stem, it didn't fit under the spacer and taper bearing that we fit in its place. Because the spacer (and bearing) is so wide, it would mean the rubber seal would be inbetween it and the bottom of the stem where the bearing/spacer is supposed to seat. However by twisting the seal so it was sitting upright instead of flat it sort of fit around. I'm going to get hold of David Silver and ask them if there's a seal designed for the kit they know of.

The other problem manifested itself only after a slightly longer ride into Onehunga and back. Whilst it feels very nice chucking through corners and on the motorway, it has a `rolling' motion at slow speeds and especially when using the front brakes around 20kph. The Haynes manual says this is due to overtight steering head bearings. There is a little drag on the steering movement right now -- should I wait and cover some kms first to see if it settles, or should I back the tension off ASAP? Is there anything else I should look at? It's a slow side-to-side rolling motion, not a wobble or anything else.

Thanks everybody.

[Ocean1]

Good work. And yes a touch too much drag in the head can cause the weave thing. I'd ease the pressure off the nut a metric smidgeon, it might settle but it sounds a tad too tight.

[xwhatsit]

I did 70 kilometres communting to work and back tonight and it seems better but it's still there. Also wants to pull to the right when I take my hands off the bars, which it didn't do before (at least with this set of forks, they're straight as far as I know) so I'll back off all the nuts and bolts and retighten in order. I'll leave the mudguard off as it's slightly warped and having it on while I do things up could be pulling them out of line.

We'll get there!

It's nice to be able to cruise at 115kph (so far as you can call that cruising on a 250 single) without it wanting to wobble like an H2.

[xwhatsit]

I backed off the bearing load a little and it's improved things. Could probably do with just a touch more un-doing though.

The veering to one side I corrected almost entirely by putting the front wheel between my knees and twisting the bars. The wheel still wants to flop to one side or another at low speeds when I let go of the bars but I'm putting that down to having the forks all the way up, instead of dropped down slightly (so quite a bit more trail/rake than I used to have).

Will see how things go over the next few hundred kilometres.

Certainly when I corner hard everything seems much more planted.