swag123

Hi,

Was trying to adjust height on roadbike, by adding rings to the handlebar. I unscrewed the screws on the stem and headset, now the headset is completely loose. I'm not sure whats wrong.

Pictures for reference: https ://imgur.com/a/jtOolYJ (remove the space)

Le Mechanic

Generally, you can't raise the height of your handlebars by adding spacer rings under the stem unless they were stacked on top of the stem previously, in other words, you can't extend the steerer tube of the fork. There are clamp-on extensions available, but I wouldn't recomend that option if you have a carbon fiber steerer tube. I made a video a few months ago on how to perform a basic threadless headset adjustment:

swag123

thanks for the reply, I watched your video, it seems I dont have the expansion sleeve, maybe thats why the headset wont tighten? I also figured out that all the rings were stacked on the stem, as you said.

Le Mechanic

Sometimes they get inadvertently loosened up when removing the preload bolt/top cap and come out in one big unit. Other times they can get loose and fall down into the steerer tube depending on what type you have. If the headset was tight before you disassembled it, it's probable there in one of the two spots.

DOS

Everything Le Mechanic says is true if you have a carbon steerer tube. However its also possible you have an aluminum tube, which wouldn’t have an expansion plug. It would have a star nut wedged down inside the steerer tube. If you have too many spacers under the stem clamp, its possible the stem bolt isn’t long enough to reach the star nut. As is indicated in the video, you want the top of the stem clamp to be 2 or 3 mm higher than the the top of the stem. As the video indicates, too low, and the up cap will bottom out and you will have play in your headset. But too high and the stem bolt my not reach the start enough to tighten sufficiently.

Also, make sure you are tightening the top cap bolt with the stem clamps loose. If you tighten the clamp bolts first, tightening the top cap both won’t do anything to remove play from the headset.

dsaul

In your last picture, the four parts on the left are your expander. I have no idea why you removed them. You will have to assemble them loosely before placing them in the steerer tube. The piece with 4 slots is the expander. The small cone goes into the expander on the bottom. The longer piece with a cone on one end and threads on the other end goes cone end into the top of the expander. The long bolt goes through the top of the long piece(threaded end) and threads into the smaller cone making the whole expander assembly. That assemply gets inserted into the steerer tube and the long bolt gets tightened to expand the assembly tightly into the steerer tube. The top cap then threads onto the the expander. You may have to experiment with how deep to set the expander, so that the top cap can thread on and have enough remaining threads to pre-load the headset. You should also remove one of the spacers from under the stem and place it on top. Carbon steerer tubes should always be fully clamped by the stem. You can flip the stem to point up, if you want the bars to be higher.

jgwilliams

As an aside, when you do get it assembled you can raise the handlebars a little by turning the stem the other way up. You can see it's angled slightly rather than being at a right-angle to the stem. This means that it's normally level when it's fitted. So if you turn it over it will angle up slightly, raising the bars.

DOS

^ Point of emphasis here. The top clamp bolt needs to be below the top of the steerer so the clamp is fully clamped around the steerer.