Garage Night Episode 5: Steering head bearings WATCH NOW!

[wazman]

We're back! In this video we fix Pete's steering head bearings - showing how to drive out the old bearing cups, get the worn-out bearings off the steering post, thoroughly pack the new bearings with grease (important!) and install everything. Please watch and leave some feedback, either here or by commenting at our site.

[HighTechCoonass]

Fantastic!!!!!!

[Mista Vern]

Nice work, gents!

[Inane Cathode]

You forgot the part where you put the upper race where the lower race goes then forget which part of the garage you left the lower race

Very nice work guys, im impressed proper bearing packing technique was shown, thats not very common information and its really important!

What i do for steering head bearings is use heat and cold to do the work for me. You do have to smack the old races out of the steering head, but for that pesky bearing on the steering head shaft i freeze the entire unit until its cold through and through, then i put a torch with a fine point of heat right on the inner race on the steering shaft, the bearing just falls off if you tap the shaft on your bench :) I then freeze the shaft and heat the bearing and slip them on. I really dont like to hammer on new bearings, it tends to brunell them before you even use them :o
I also use cold when i put the outer races in the steering head, just freeze em real good, heat up the bore where the races go, and the suckers just drop right in with no hammering :)
Another neat tip; You wouldnt think it, but pvc is stronger than you would think, you can actually use schedule 40 as a reliable bearing driver as long as you use a deadblow or a rubber mallet and dont go nuts :)

[wazman]

Originally Posted by Inane Cathode

Very nice work guys, im impressed proper bearing packing technique was shown, thats not very common information and its really important!

What i do for steering head bearings is use heat and cold to do the work for me ....

It's a good tip to put the bearing cups in the freezer. I don't think I would resort to freezing anything else, or heating the headstock etc. - but if you've got the facilities and the time, and you want to do the job as delicately as possible with minimum hammering, then why not?

Though you've got me worried that next time I go for a ride in the freezing British winter all my bearings are going to drop out ...

PS - someone mentioned in another forum that a bead of arc weld on the bearing cup will distort it enough to make it pop out easily. It seems plausible but carries an element of risk to the bike's electronics, and by the time you've unplugged everything you probably could have just belted the cups out. What do others think?

[smokinjoe]

Nice job, fellas!!!! Proper bearing greasing isn't something you see very often and I'd say that's part of the problem with newer bikes....that and the fact there seems to be no grease at all in some cases!

As far as striking an arc on the inner race to get it off......no way in hell! Once you've introduced that current and completed the circuit, all your other bearing surfaces will be junk. It may be possible to run the current right through the inner race itself, but is that a chance you really want to take?

[moriverdirt]

nice video, cant wait for the second half of the chain video.

my brother-n-law showed me a trick (over the phone 2000 miles away) when packing bearings. same general method as the video only difference is you smack the bearing against the palm with the grease. after doing this for a while you will see a perfect bead of grease working its way up between the rollers to the other side of the bearing and out the other side.

[patsymack]

Great video.I was surprised how easy the inner races came out.I always struggle with these especially the upper one.
Thanks for taking the time to do this.
Patsy

[GSBS]

Thanks for the easy-to-follow and well-edited video.

I only wish I'd seen it before I paid a mx engine builder to do the SHB on my 03 Dakar - the first work anyone but me has done on the bike since I bought it.

The guy forgot or just didn't think it necessary to torque the front caliper bolts when reassembling and after 20 miles one vibrated out. Luckily, when I grabbed a handful of mushy front brake it was at 20 mph on a gravel road and it was the lower bolt that was lost, allowing the caliper to harmlessly rotate forward. Had it been the other bolt it might not have been pretty.

From that point on (30K miles on the bike - now about to turn over 44K) no one else works on it.

Thanks again for the Garage Night Series! Great work!

[Bird76Mojo]

Nice video! Very informative and helpful, especially for those who have'nt had the pleasure of doing this job already..

GB

[leonphelps]

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