Steering head bearing replacement

[HispanicSlammer]

I found that when I brake for a tight turn at slow speed I was getting chatter in the forks, its really unnerving so I decided to tackle the steering head bearings. ?Most of the work involved is taking parts off to get to the bearings.

Removing Fairings

The side fairings are rather easy to take off remove all the bolts and just pop it off nice and easy, there are a couple of plastic tabs in the wheel well and 2 more bolts in the scoop, 2 on the very bottom. ?It is the front fairing that can be tricky since there are hidden fasteners under other pieces.

Remove the mirrors - 5mm hex bolts

Under the mirror is a screw that must be removed

Remove the screws on the inner moldings

Another hidden screw inside the molding

The front cowl is ready to be pulled loose

Now you can unplug the two lights and turn signals

Remove the fender

Taking off the wheel loosening the axle bolt

Loosening the axle pinch bolts

Removing the brake calipers this side is 12mm bolts

the other is 6mm hex

I lifted the bike with a jack under the pipes and pulled off the wheel, then I started to remove the hose attachments and the horn assembly.

Remove the horn assembly

Take off the hose attachments 4 bolts one is behind the hose so its last

I loosened the four pinch bolts on the triple clamp unbolted the clipons and slid out the forks, I took a card paper and used it to mark the height of the forks in the clamps for easy reference when reassembling. ?I used a large crescent wrench on the top clamp bolt, thats a no brainier it has to come off.

Here is the steering column

Bend the tabs flat and tap off the top pinch bolt with a hammer and a flat screwdriver.

Honda sells an expensive socket for this but I dint have the time to find it. They are not on too tight Unscrew the bottom bolt and remove the clip, then the column just falls out careful not to let it drop, remove the old bearing sets.

Hammering out the bottom race

The races have to be hammered out, the frame has notches for you to do this, I used a metal rod and hammer and tapped on both sides until they popped out.

Looking up you can see the notches

The old races came out easy

The old races where visibly pitted and that was the cause of my chattering forks, too much play in the column does that.

You can see where the ball bearing pitted the race

I gently clamped the column and started to hammer the race off

This was a bit awkward, I used a rag in the vice and hammered on each side until the race came off, it took about five minutes. ?I did not use a torch since I tend to burn myself with those. ?It just took patients and evenly hammering it so it would not twist and bind on the column.

Now its off

I saved the old races to use as hammers to make contact with the strong part of the new bearings to keep from damaging the tapered rollers.

New dust collar and slide on the new bearing

The new bearings are binded with the outer races the old ones were separate pieces. I flipped the old race over and found a pipe that was long and wide enough to make contact and hammered the new bearing in.

Using the old race to hammer in the new one

The inside races are tapered not concave, I have a bearing hammer to use for those. Greased up race first then gently hammered them into place.

Fitted the new race on the bottom

Hammered it in the rest of the way

I have a bearing hammer that has interchangeable heads for different sized bearings, this one fit the top race just right.

Now the top race

its in, now grease the race surface good.

Pack grease on the new bearings

Fit the column back in from the bottom

Make sure the bearings are snug

Put on the top dust seal

I screwed on the flange and tightened it not too tight so that it turned easy but not loose, over tight could ruin your new bearings, too loose and your in trouble. ?It should take about 7 lbs of force to move the handle bar fully assembled you should not feel it grinding thats too tight. ?Just as IntAcepter suggested I followed his procedures for the most part.

Now fitting all the other parts back on, ?I find the bike sits a bit higher now cause they are taller tapered bearings, so the bikes rides a might bit higher. ?I am going to back off some preload first and see how it feels, if it feels like it used to ?I will then lower the forkes about 5mm if the thats the case.</font>