steering head bearings

[philbond07]

Hi all,

Just took me K3n out of wintersleep. Seems upper steering stem bearings make some screeching noise when turning slowly. Are they regreasable, or are they closed & unservicable. Don't even know if they are ball or roller bearings. Tx.

[yorkie_chris]

Yes strip them and grease them.

OEM is caged ball type. You can separate them, outer will remain in frame (press fit), cage and balls will be loose and inner part is sliding fit on steering stem.

[philbond07]

Hey tx Yorkie,

ok great, forgot to ask: what is best grease to use? I think I've got some "Castrol LM grease" around. Will that do?

[yorkie_chris]

Yeah LM is fine. I've got some pyroplex blue here which is ace stuff. But I can't find where to buy a small quantity as it's meant for commercial vehicles.

[maviczap]

This is probably because Mr Suzuki only greased one third of the bearings in your steering head, they like to economise on grease expenditure. Even to ones that were greased, only got a flick

[philbond07]

I wonder if it's possible to install a grease nipple for the upper/lower bearings in the steering stem. Did anybody ever manage to do that?

[yorkie_chris]

Not practical unless you wish to fill the entire frame with grease?

No point either, strip them down once a year and they'll be reet.

[philbond07]

Hi again gentlemen,

Found some time to disassemble the steering stem today.

Upper and lower bearings were still well greased. So don't know yet where noise was coming from.
BUT: the lower "stem nut" was stripped when undoing ! No problem undoing "head nut" and upper "stem locknut". Apparently it had been mounted cross-threaded when bike was assembled. So had to apply considerable force to undo it. Very strange. Of course lot of aluminum thread-pieces came off. As the steering stem thread itself is steel I suppose it's still ok (I hope) and the alu was coming of the "stem nut" itself. In the middle of the thread on the stem the steel thread is "interrupted" like by a solid piece that seems to be "welded" on ???. Will try to include a pic later on.
Guess best thing to do is try to rethread steering stem to get rid of solid piece, and get 1 new "stem nut".
Upper & lower bearing inner/outer races seem to be ok.
Bearings themselves: how do you know when they are worn out? There is considerable play of the balls in there cage (like 3-4 mm) but I guess this is normal?

[maviczap]

Originally Posted by philbond07

Hi again gentlemen,

Found some time to disassemble the steering stem today.

Upper and lower bearings were still well greased. So don't know yet where noise was coming from.
BUT: the lower "stem nut" was stripped when undoing ! No problem undoing "head nut" and upper "stem locknut". Apparently it had been mounted cross-threaded when bike was assembled. So had to apply considerable force to undo it. Very strange. Of course lot of aluminum thread-pieces came off. As the steering stem thread itself is steel I suppose it's still ok (I hope) and the alu was coming of the "stem nut" itself. In the middle of the thread on the stem the steel thread is "interrupted" like by a solid piece that seems to be "welded" on ???. Will try to include a pic later on.
Guess best thing to do is try to rethread steering stem to get rid of solid piece, and get 1 new "stem nut".
Upper & lower bearing inner/outer races seem to be ok.
Bearings themselves: how do you know when they are worn out? There is considerable play of the balls in there cage (like 3-4 mm) but I guess this is normal?

Need to see some pics before diaognosing what the problem is

Play in the bearing will go, when you tighten the adjustable bearing thust nut at the top (the one you're supposed to use a C spanner on) Sounds like the alloy has reacted with the steel if there looks like a blob of weld on the steering stem. Shouldn't be like that. OEM top stem nut is steel.

Might need to get your steering stem thread re cut where the blob of weld is?

Pics will help

[philbond07]

ok, the pics

more or less visible: the "weld" on the stem: