Headset loose

[Ivor]

I'll describe the symptoms, you provide the jokes... I noticed on my commuting bike the headset seems to be loose holding the front brake and rocking back and forth there's a noticeable but slight wobble and you can see the top of the stem move relative to the steerer.
so... as part of my evenings maintenance frenzy I had a quick fiddle.
It's an aheadset, so I loosened off the screws on the side, and the top wiggled it about a bit, and tightened it back up. When I tightened it so there wasn't any wobble. then the steering was stiff. so no good there. once I backed it off so the steering was just right it wobbled.
any ideas what this means? what do I need to replace? can an aheadset be taken apart and serviced or do I need too many special tools?

Cheers, greasilly,
Ivor

[Andrew G]

For Ian...
On my commuter mine's stiff as hell at the moment, keeps wanting to point straight on. Don't recall ever servicing it in the 6 or so years I've had the bike though so maybe my balls just need greasing.
Last time I played with a heatset was switching an external one on my old fixie and the balls fell out and left a stain on the floor, so I'll probably take the lazy route and get the shop to do it.

Finbar.

[Graham O]

Check the headset washers..

I had a similar problem. It turned out that one of the washers was on the wrong way around.

[Ivor]

Hmmm, washers have directions? ok. I'll take it all apart tonight and try and figure it out.

[-Adam-]

When you tighten a headset (ahead) you need to do up the top bolt first, i.e the one that goes down into the steerer tube. But not too tight, if its too tight you make the steering stiff as mentioned.

Then tighten up the bolts on the stem. Making sure the stem is straight inline with the wheel of course, otherwise riding no hands can get interesting.

If the headset was properly installed in the first place, you just need to make sure its well greased to prevent the ingress of water. If it wasn't the chances are the bearings are f***** (technical term), and you will need to replace them then do what I said first...

[Ivor]

ok mystery solved, finally had time to dismantle it last night. then spent a few minutes removing all the constituent parts of the bearing from the stem with a magnet.
picked up an unwanted headset at a tasty discount this morning to salvage the bearings.

[Robh]

The top bolt preloads the bearings to take up the slack.

[Ian A4size]

Cooooooooooorrrrr