Steering Head Bearings?

[Saul]

Now you know I had new ones fitted to my CBF the other day,  well I was chatting to one of my mates from back in the day when we were on Fizzy's and AP50's.  He said do you remember when we did another mates bike for him.  Twas a Suzuki B120 with absolutley fecked steering head bearings.  I mean really bad, almost impossible to steer.  Anyway he found a generic old Motorcycle maintenance Manual in the charity shop so we used that, about 6 of us  tackled it, all without much of a clue.  Anyway to the point of the tale, the manual advised us to replace worn steering head bearings but also advised that for a temporary fix that you could take out the races clock them 90 degrees  refit and repack the balls in grease.    Of course that was what we did and it bloody well worked.   Much to all of our surprise. Of course being 16/17 none of us any money so it was never touched again until he traded the B120 for a new Suzuki GP100.   

I had forgotten about this but my mate reminded me.   

Anyone else ever heard of this?   

Of course you would never do such a thing nowadays but I suppose it must have been a acceptable fix back in the day.  

[Marcel]

Yes I have...we call those a half arse job...lol. 

[Buckster]

6 minutes ago, Marcel said:

Yes I have...we call those a half arse job...lol. 

So basically every job you have ever done then.

[Marcel]

10 hours ago, Buckster said:

So basically every job you have ever done then.

Says the man who only worked on a two  wheel tractor all his life....

[Pedro]

4 hours ago, Saul said:

Now you know I had new ones fitted to my CBF the other day,  well I was chatting to one of my mates from back in the day when we were on Fizzy's and AP50's.  He said do you remember when we did another mates bike for him.  Twas a Suzuki B120 with absolutley fecked steering head bearings.  I mean really bad, almost impossible to steer.  Anyway he found a generic old Motorcycle maintenance Manual in the charity shop so we used that, about 6 of us  tackled it, all without much of a clue.  Anyway to the point of the tale, the manual advised us to replace worn steering head bearings but also advised that for a temporary fix that you could take out the races clock them 90 degrees  refit and repack the balls in grease.    Of course that was what we did and it bloody well worked.   Much to all of our surprise. Of course being 16/17 none of us any money so it was never touched again until he traded the B120 for a new Suzuki GP100.   

I had forgotten about this but my mate reminded me.   

Anyone else ever heard of this?   

Of course you would never do such a thing nowadays but I suppose it must have been a acceptable fix back in the day.  

I di hear about that, but for mountainbikes, which are also quite abused.

 In my mind it doesn’t make sense unless it’s a bush job, but worse than that is I also don’t understand how it improves things except it disturbs the balls or pins out or their set grooves and temporarily gives them a new edge to roll on while they don’t eat those edges off?

 

[Saul]

6 hours ago, Pedro said:

I di hear about that, but for mountainbikes, which are also quite abused.

 In my mind it doesn’t make sense unless it’s a bush job, but worse than that is I also don’t understand how it improves things except it disturbs the balls or pins out or their set grooves and temporarily gives them a new edge to roll on while they don’t eat those edges off?

 

The is normally a visible grove in the bearing races at the dead ahead and dead after section when mounted in the bike, especially when they have gotten noticeably worn.  So the point is you move a fresh relatively unworn section from the left and right sides around to fore and aft.   This is in the races not the ball bearings.   Yes the ball bearings wear and become pitted and rough but it is the actual races we are talking about here.   Even the manual that we had was old, Practical Motorcyclist or something like that looked like it was from the 1960's said it was only a temporary fix.   And it did work, the owner of the bike we 'fixed' didn't keep it long after that only a few weeks.  He managed to get the deposit together to buy a new Suzuki GP100 on higher purchase..  I wish I could be more accurate but this happened in the early 1980's and I had all but forgotten about it until my mate brought it up the other day. 

[YamaHead]

Decent temp-fix when your wallet is light....& the bike is to be sold shortly after. I've replaced 3 different sets of steering head bearings on my Yamahas....all w/ tapered roller bearings & races...What a difference!