Headset adjustment
 

An old inexpensive steel frame from the 1980s. The headset adjustment seems to be appropriate. When stopped standing beside the bike, the handlebars rotate freely and smoothly. But when riding it, steering is stiff and sluggish. The only thing I can think of that would cause this is the upper and lower bearing cups being reversed. But they’re not. Is there anything else that could cause this?

Dan

Are the bearings too loose and causing a binding when riding? Have you tried rocking the handlebars back and forth while stopped?

Wheel has a lot of trail? That'd be a force that you only notice when you start moving. You won't change the amount of trail without getting a new fork.

How much do you turn your bars when riding? I honestly don't know that I turn them much at all if any. I think that when I lean into the turn the normal castering of the wheel from the amount of trail on it turns it for me. Perhaps if the speed is less than 3 mph, I might could consciously turn the bars to steer the bike. Any faster than that and it's just magic. <grin>

Either wrong sized bearings cup/cone or bearings shot.

Change to new bearings, if problem still there, change the headset.

Even low end bearing headsets like neco do the job because it'll restore what was shot.

Headsets are cheap and quick to swap. One should not be spending too much time pondering what to do.

The handlebars don’t rock, but I have actually loosened the headset nuts to try to alleviate the problem. Maybe they are too loose now. Now that I think of it, it seems to have gotten a little worse after I loosened them.

Dan

At this point, I think I would just bite the bullet and disassemble it and look everything over. If they are cage bearings, maybe one of them got put in bass ackwards. I put a bike together late October or early November that you would think it was the first bike I ever worked on with the silly mistakes I made.

Good luck. ,

You initiate a lean by counter-steering, and you normally do it unconsciously. You also resist the "castering" through a turn, otherwise the bike would flip itself upright. On a motorcycle it can be useful to counter-steer in an exaggerated way to flick the bike around obstacles or drop into a fast bend.

There wasn't really a question on my part how steering works on my bike. I just posed the response in what to me was a humorous way. It's the OP that needs some help.

I was trying to explain why the steering isn't as easy as when their bike is stopped. While they think it's something mechanically wrong, I think they are just feeling the dynamic forces that cause the wheel seem harder to steer. Trail being one of them because that tends to make a bike seem more stable with increasing trail However increasing trail also increases the amount of force needed to steer.

So the difference they are seeing in the old bike compared to any other bike they have might be due to the amount of trail that particular bike has.

Well, you’re sort of right. Normally there isn’t much “turning” of the handlebars on a road bike. But in this case, because the steering has become stiff and sluggish, intended little corrections become bigger, more pronounced, because the steering isn’t responding the way it should. My other bikes with similar headsets don’t have this issue. The only difference on the bike in question is wheel/tire size. On my other road bikes I run tire widths of like 700c x 25-28. This bike has 27” wheels that I currently have a 1¼ width tire on. So, there’s a bit more rubber meeting the road. But that added surface area shouldn’t impact the steering like that. When I get time, I’m going to disassemble the head set to see if there’s an issue with the bearings/cups/races. I may just go ahead and order the complete new headset.— Dan

With the headset a bit too loose, stand over the bike with the front brake on. Rock back and forth, feeling a small "clunk". Tighten the headset gradually until the "clunk" goes away. Then remove the front wheel. The fork should spin smoothly all around. Feel for any binding or roughness.

The acid test it how it rides. We use incredibly low forces to steer bikes, so ANY headset friction or biding is immediately obvious and makes riding difficult. (feels squirrelly)

If it rides OK, especially if it rides no hands OK, it is OK.

If not, pull it apart and fix whatever is wrong.

Old style headsets with two big nuts on top are really easy to permanently damage when adjusting; The person snugs down the bottom nut, even just hand tight, but that nut is pushed up against the "top" side of the threads; Now they tighten the top nut (often with a 32mm wrench with a huge handle because the other end is a 15mm pedal wrench, so too much leverage), pushing the bottom nut down across that thread gap, and it is just enough to push the bearing balls into the cups and dent ("Brinell") them, if the bearing races are stamped and not that thick. Look for brinelling. When readjusting, always start from too loose, tighten nuts, if needs more, a little more, etc. You can't overshoot or the bearing cups are damaged. I think newer better quality headset cups may be more resistant to this. Also much easier to avoid with newer "Aheadset" style adjustment.

It's really hard to feel what the bearings are doing with bike on the ground and the mass of the wheel and handlebars included. Put the bike in a stand with that mass removed and you might be surprised at how crappy the bearings feel. The same happens with the bottom bracket when the cranks are removed, and spinning an axle in a wheel hub vs spinning the wheel on the bike.

If you have the tools, get a new headset in there. They're not very expensive. Be sure you have the crown race measurement right--there were a couple of "standards" in that era. The headset was the last moving part to be replaced in my 1983 Trek 520, and it had a 27 mm crown. It was having a steering problem like you described. I've replaced a lot of headsets, and I could not diagnose a bad bearing until I got it in the stand. It was brinnelled as described above.

Old MTBs with threaded headsets seldom have that problem, since the bars are rotated much more than on road bikes. I might ride 25 miles at a time without actually using the bars.

I beg to disagree. It's nearly impossible to damage a headset this way.

The "brinnelling" seen on worn or damaged headsets is caused by fretting, aka "false brinnelling", because it looks similar.

Fretting, rather than typical ball track wear is specific to headsets because they are pretty much stationary, allowing road vibration to work lube from contact points, while denying the opportunity to refresh the lube by rolling.

This is a well documented process with zero debate among bearing experts.

Skipping the science, the best evidence is the specific nature of the damage, wherein the headset always indexes straight ahead, showing that the damage happens while riding. Whereas, damage caused by some kind of human or overtightening error would produce random index positions.

I disassembled the headset and inspected and cleaned it. Everything seems to be mostly OK. However, there were a couple things I’m concerned about. One was that a few of the balls (two or three) didn’t seem to be freely moving in the cage. The bearing cage looks unblemished, but it seemed to be crimped ever so slightly, and thereby keeping the adjacent ball from moving freely. I separated/pried the part of the cage holding the ball in place just a smidge to loosen the ball. There weren’t any pits or wear spots on the balls. It’s reassembled and I’ll give it a test today. If it didn’t resolve the problem, I’ll order the new headset. The other thing I noticed is that the race at the bottom of the steer tube doesn’t fit snugly onto the tube. I.e. I was able to just lift it off without prying. But the bearings roll freely and smoothly on it. Does that race need to fit tight onto the tube?

Dan

"Really easy to permanently damage?" This simply isn't true if you have any understanding at all of the mechanical concepts involved.

Yes, bearing races absolutely must be tight on their supports, ie. fork steerer and headtube. If there's any play between race and tube it would be impossible to eliminate play in the assembly.

Cage in upside down?
Ditch the cage and go loose balls.

Never hurts to post a picture. I often read these threads and get reminded of the old Commodore games. Almost sounds like the bearing cages were installed upside down.

Lets see... What did Sheldon used ta say? Something like...

"Loose Balls Rule"

Inverted cages in headsets are very common. One reason is that it can be counter-intuitive. Often, the wrong orientation looks more right.

BITD when I taught repair, students beat the 50/50 odds by being wrong more than half the time.

Unless you expect a cage and end up spreading them all over, lol.

Yep... And you know this...

I just used the rule of packing new balls in tight then removing one.

As kids we used to remove two that way we could show off riding hands free. Look Ma no hands! And then Look Ma no teeth...

Do you know the history on this bike? This could be something someone cobbled together.

Well, before I was much more experienced, with my first good road bike, the headset had a tiny bit of slack, I readjusted it without the cautions I said, and suddenly the steering was notchy, even after backing off slightly, I think I brinneled the cups. This was not deep into its life, circa '89 Shimano 105 headset. Perhaps it had fretting that only showed up after tightening, but like I said, not that many miles. I bought it with an upgraded fork which they had to cut the steer tube to length, I later wished it had been left long so I could install a roller-bearing headset, and the more modern Aheadset style stem, for no such errors. My current bike is a Dahon folder, and the folding-stem base is attached very similar; A large (10mm?) allen center bolt engaging inner threads on the steer tube, gently snug up, tighten the outer clamp bolt on the stem base, done, perfect.

These days I have a very strong understanding of the mechanical concepts involved. Usually, not that easy to damage a bearing, if the race has any reasonable thickness. But if a thin stamped race and balls or needles with small contact area, not that difficult to brinell. I don't know of the cups on that headset are that thin, I never sectioned one.