Do I need new bearings?

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swee'pea99

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

568286


:eek:
 

roley poley

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

C R

Guru
Location
Worcester
never seen wear like that...I have had crushed ones and badly pitted ones but not with a score round like that :headshake:
Yes, damage all the way round is surprising for a headset, I thought for headset bearings the main damage mode was brinnelling.
 
OP
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swee'pea99

swee'pea99

Legendary Member
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 :headshake:

...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 :laugh:) 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...

1610300800484.png

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...
 
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