Bevisthebuzzard

I recently bought a springer fork. When I went to install I found the steering tube is too long. Now I'm trying to determine which steering tube to buy. The headset measures 5.5 inches, should I get the 5.5 steering tube or the 6.5

Philphine

I may be misunderstanding what you're asking, but I think you may have to buy another springer that uses a shorter steer tube. the connection points won't match up or something will be so cocked that it won't work well. I recently got a few cheap springers on an ebay deal, but the bike I want to use one on only has a 4" head tube. I had to buy another springer with a shorter steer tube.


you might still be able to use the longer one though, if you don't mind a bit of cobbling. the shorter one I got was still too long (sounds like your's is longer so it might work for you), so I used a combo of threaded and threadless headset pieces to take up the space. i'll post a pic when I get a chance of what I did.

Philphine

here's the shorter one I got (off ebay)





not the prettiest, but I'm trying to get around cutting this head tube off and replacing it (I'm an amateur welder at best and hate welding on headtubes, plus it's all molded in and looks nice). I think I added about what you would have anyway in a 5.5" head tube, but if you want to use the longer one you have already. this might work.


I'm not good with the actual names of the pieces, but hopefully i'll get them close enough to understand.


the top bearing race is a threadless piece, because the threads didn't go down far enough. then a couple of 1" spacers I got at a local bike shop to keep the springer points kind of aligned as they should be. at that point I have threads, so I ground down a top nut that would be at the top of a 1" threaded set up and used it like a jam nut to hold all the threadless parts in place, without having to tighten it down and have it bind. from there it's normal. the springer piece that goes on the steer tube (and the washer with the notch in it, but with the springer piece I don't think it's needed), then the top nut.