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Puddle Jumper
Posts: 19
oskaloosa, IA United States | Hello all,
I have 34000 on my 09 vision, I have the forks off for a oil seal change. I can feel a slight bump no play when I turn the triple clamps. Thinking about changing the head bearings over to tapered top and bottom. Has this been done. Thanks for any information you can give me on this.  Dale. |
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Visionary
Posts: 8144
New Bohemia, VA | the head bearings, argh. Grease them, lube them EVERY 15,000 miles the book says. The problem is the air filter sucks in moisture and it settles in the recess where the lower bearing is. Before long it causes rust and you'll have to replace it. Not a fun chore. If they are still good, just lube it up and keep riding. If not, you'll have to replace it. |
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Visionary
Posts: 4278
| steering bearings are tapered. Don't know where you live but pull your bearings and find a bearing store in your town you can get better bearing for a lot less then Vic wants |
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Iron Butt
Posts: 802
| johnnyvision - 2014-03-05 4:30 PM
steering bearings are tapered. Not exactly, John. Only the lower bearing is a tapered type. The top one is a sealed ball bearing as I remember.
Marc |
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Visionary
Posts: 8144
New Bohemia, VA | marcparnes - 2014-03-06 12:49 PM johnnyvision - 2014-03-05 4:30 PM steering bearings are tapered. Not exactly, John. Only the lower bearing is a tapered type. The top one is a sealed ball bearing as I remember. Marc You're right, MP. And the need to replace that one is probably never. The lower one on the other hand will last a good while if kept serviced. I'm on the 1st replacement and I'll need to replace it this summer. The first one got trashed at around 35,000 miles for the sole reason of not servicing it. The moisture from through the air filter I believe makes this a requirement at or around 15,000, more if you ride in the rain....  |
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Visionary
Posts: 4278
| next time I have to do headlight I'm going to pull filter and that air tube and take a gob of grease and reach in and try my best to cover the bearing with it.
Maybe it will help or hurt my arm |
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Visionary
Posts: 1365
Central Maryland | johnnyvision - 2014-03-07 7:36 PM
next time I have to do headlight I'm going to pull filter and that air tube and take a gob of grease and reach in and try my best to cover the bearing with it.
Maybe it will help or hurt my arm
That will be a futile act of attempted steering bearing maintenance. The only way to get at that lower bearing; is to drop the steering stem out of the frame and grease it.
Wonder if you could do minimal surgery on it; just remove handlebars and top triple tree; then drop steering stem slightly with forks and wheel still attached; then grease lower bearing while still on stem (and greased removed upper bearing as well?
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Tourer
Posts: 482
Beer Collins, Colorado (there is no fort) | I'm considering drilling a passageway and tapping a grease zerk in for future lube service-I did this on my old Kaw Vulcan steering head & swing arm-worked great. |
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Iron Butt
Posts: 802
| ByteN2it - 2014-03-08 7:12 AM
I'm considering drilling a passageway and tapping a grease zerk in for future lube service-I did this on my old Kaw Vulcan steering head & swing arm-worked great. Thats interesting. Where would you put the fitting and what would the grease pathway to the inner race be?
Marc |
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Cruiser
Posts: 111
| I wonder if there is a sealed bearing we could use. It would take care of all this in one fell swoop. What's the ID, OD and thickness? |
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Iron Butt
Posts: 802
| rebelce - 2014-03-09 5:59 AM
I wonder if there is a sealed bearing we could use. It would take care of all this in one fell swoop. What's the ID, OD and thickness?
30-55-17 mm. I looked some but couldn't find any sealed in that size. Timken makes sealed tapered roller bearings but I only find them in inch sizes. Maybe another maker?
Marc |
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Cruiser
Posts: 111
| After looking all over the place, I pretty much came up empty handed too for a sealed bearing. There are top seals out there. Allballs has a topseal listed in their kits, probably better than nothing, more of a dust covering. This is a very common size among bikes and most have a dust cover included with the bearing kit. |
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Visionary
Posts: 8144
New Bohemia, VA | I'm sure there is an application out there, but I don't know of any sealed tapered bearings for something like this. The race is pressed on seperately from the bearing. The trick would be how to get your lower tree out. The top bearing is just a slid through from the stem, keeping it from moving to and fro but allowing it to rotate. It works, it's just you've got to do more maintenance, that's all. I don't hear much folk talking about the steering bearing, but mine has been trashed at least once due to lack of maintenance and moisture. Shame on me.
Edited by varyder 2014-03-10 10:19 AM
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Iron Butt
Posts: 802
| varyder - 2014-03-10 8:11 AM I'm sure there is an application out there, but I don't know of any sealed tapered bearings for something like this. The race is pressed on seperately from the bearing. The trick would be how to get your lower tree out. The top bearing is just a slid through from the stem, keeping it from moving to and fro but allowing it to rotate. It works,?it's?just you've got to do more maintenance, that's all. I don't hear much folk talking about the steering bearing, but mine has been trashed at least once due to lack of maintenance and moisture. Shame on me. There's a good picture of a sealed bearing on the Timkin site. The seal is attached to the cage with a protruding lip that seals on the outer race when the two parts come together. That way you can install the pieces separately as usual. Pretty ingenious.
Marc
Edited by marcparnes 2014-03-10 10:37 AM
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steering head bearings