mjac

I have a 15 year old Schwin Varsity. No matter what I do the fork stem wobbles back and forth pretty significantly. Took out the factory caged bearings and replaced them with loose bearings and tightened the stemm bolt, still wobbles. I think the bearing races are worn out. Can you buy the bearing races and do the races in the headset come out?...Thanks,mjac

blamester

Threaded or threadless.
​​​​​​The races would be amazingly worn if they could not snug up to the bearings.
There is likely something else going on.
​​Does the bottom race engage correctly.
If so it's the upper races that are the problem.

mjac

It is threadless. I thought the same thing. How can there be that much stress on headset bearings. When I first took it down, the bearings in the original cage bearings were worn almost all the way to the cage. So I thought that must be it. I changed it to loose bearings of the correct size but the problem persisted. I tried going up one size in bearings but they would not fit in the races. I resorted to turning the top race upside down to make more contact with the bearings. This reduced it from being really bad to just bad. That is why I thought it must be the races. Everything is engaged properly and lined up and the stem bolt is tight. I can tighten it to actually impede the steering. Now I do have 41/2" in a riser and spacers from the top of the headset to the bottom of the handlebar bracket to try an improve the geometry. Maybe this caused excessive wear to the races...Thanks,mjac

Andrew R Stewart 

First determine if the headset bearings are indeed unable to be preloaded. One's hand should be able to apply enough pressure on the top race AND it's conical centering split ring (sometimes called the compression ring). No stem, no draw bolt yet installed. If the headset seems to be able to be preloaded then it's likely not the problem. next look at whether the top of the steerer is bottoming out on either the top cap or the riser/extender. If this were the case the headset wouldn't have been preloaded and slop would happen. Adding headset spacers is the usual way to fix this. If the headset can be preloaded with the riser installed then look to see if the riser it not able to be tightened around the steerer or the stem around the riser. Some headsets are best set up with a ball less then a full compliment of balls, if the last ball needs nudging to position it it's likely one ball too many. Too many balls will cause the adjustment to be both stiff in rotation and loose in slop. After all this a hands on assessment by a qualified person is in order. Andy

mjac

I have not taken it down yet to check preload without the stem or draw bolt yet but the steerer is definitely not bottomed out I have everything stretched to the max to get the most height. Like I said, the handlebars are way above the headset. With the adjustable neck on top of the steering tube coming off the riser vertical it is 73/4" from the top of the headset to the middle of the handlebars. A lot of leverage. The riser is definitely clamped to the steerer and the stem is clamped to the riser. But I did jam as many ball bearings into the two races that I could. More bearings the better I thought. This would cause significant slack? Explain hoe one less bearing tightens things up...Thanks,mjac

Wilfred Laurier

I couldn’t tell from your posts if the bearing cages are still in place, but an upside down bearing cage causes similar symptoms to what you are describing.

Andrew R Stewart 

Too many loose balls in a cup will make one (or more) balls not seat fully down in the cup. The lifted ball (the one that can't fully nestle into the cup) will contact the cone before the other, fully seated down, balls do. So a sort of but not really adjustment can be done resulting in the steerer being not properly supported by the entire group of balls. That one lifted ball will tend to move about, as the steerer is rotated and the balls get "dragged" along. The steerer will slop about a bit yet the headset will feel too tight by rotational effort. One ball too little is FAR better then one too many. Andy

mjac

No, I mentioned this in the first post, that when I replaced the original bearing cages with loose bearings, the bearings in the cages were worn down almost all the way to the cages. I thought that was the problem but changing to the right sized loose bearings did not solve the problem...Thanks,mjac

mjac

That sure sounds like what is going on. I can crank down on the stem bolt until you can hardly turn the wheel and the back and forth slop is still there. Did not know this. I wonder if this is it. I couldn't understand how a bearing race in the headset could get so worn it would cause this degree of slop. There just isn't much strain or use on the headset...Thanks,mjac