Originally Posted by
The Thin Man
What say ye, C&V'ers?
Take the fork out, and hold it in a vice the with steerer tube upwards, proud of the vice top by about an inch.
Put the locknut on the fork, flat side facing upwards.
Put the race on, saw-tooth side pointing up.
Adjust the race so the saw-points are just proud of the steerer tube, and lock it there by jamming the locknut and race together.
File the saw-points off, using the top of the fork as a guide to make sure you have the surface flat and square when you are done.
Throw away the toothed washer.
Those saw-tooth arrangements are a Bad Idea.
Without them you can get *exactly* the headset adjustment that is right, with them you are limited to the 1/30th of a mm (or so, I can't remember how many points there are) steps set by each separate alignment of points.
That's 0.03mm; good balls are ground to less than 0.001, thirty times smaller.
A saw-tooth headset pretty much guarantees that it will either be too loose or too tight.
(The pin-and-hole arrangements are Bad in the same way, but that's an easy fix; knock off the pin.)