howdy,
while on the hospital (some might remember my encounter with an Audi) my trusted dealer adjusted the steering head bearing and recommend me to change it due to some light notches in which one can notice how the rolling elements have worked their way in the tracks. Bike passed the 60 000 miles mark this weekend and although there's no play or dancing around at any speed, even if I let the handlebar go (and not, I don't take my hands really off, I just let the thing loose to see if everything is ok).
Now I know Brian has addressed this topic in the past, but I can't seem to find the threads, so I will ask here:
- what type of bearing has this bike? tapered roller? balls?
- what's the cost of the bearing that Kawa recommends?
- what are the alternatives?
- what is the work involved for the swap? since my dealer costs about 75 an hour, that should help me see what to expect. I'm going to ask him, of course, but just for comparison I'd like to hear from you guys.
Thanks,
Martín

If your bike doesn't wander side-side on a straight/level road, leave it be. Has little to do with 'hands off' riding at speed. The bike will wander side-side with over tightened or notched bearings... You can't keep it tracking a straight line.


On a C-10, bearings could be changed in 3-4 hours, and they'd be tapered roller bearings.


Rick

Yeah, I thought I wrote about that too- maybe it was not on this forum?

Anyway, the stock bearings are ball bearings, specifically angular contact type; it takes two bearings to make a set as one bearing cannot be used alone. They do tend to Brinell ('dent') as they are fairly small for the loads involved IMO, and the contact angle is nearly vertical and that is what makes them require so much tightening and attention. A better way to go is to swap them out for tapered roller bearings, which you can buy in the same size and is a direct replacement. I tighten tapered roller bearings to about 5 ft. lbs. rather than the factory recommended 17 ft. lbs. as these type bearings have much more drag given the same end thrust (Easy Boys!).

Changing them is a bit of a pain and will take a few hours. The stem has to be removed from the headstock of the bike, then the inner, upper race has to be driven out using a dedicated bearing puller or a long drift and hammer. The inner, lower race is also a press bit but it is on the bottom of the stem- that too will require pulling or driving it off with a very shallow drift to get it started. None of it is particularly difficult work but it does take a bit of force coupled with a little finesse to remove the old races and install the new ones correctly.

Best of luck with that Martin.

Brian

howdy,
while on the hospital (some might remember my encounter with an Audi) my trusted dealer adjusted the steering head bearing and recommend me to change it due to some light notches in which one can notice how the rolling elements have worked their way in the tracks. Bike passed the 60 000 miles mark this weekend and although there's no play or dancing around at any speed, even if I let the handlebar go (and not, I don't take my hands really off, I just let the thing loose to see if everything is ok).
Now I know Brian has addressed this topic in the past, but I can't seem to find the threads, so I will ask here:
- what type of bearing has this bike? tapered roller? balls?
- what's the cost of the bearing that Kawa recommends?
- what are the alternatives?
- what is the work involved for the swap? since my dealer costs about 75 an hour, that should help me see what to expect. I'm going to ask him, of course, but just for comparison I'd like to hear from you guys.
Thanks,
Martín

Yeah, I thought I wrote about that too- maybe it was not on this forum?

Anyway, the stock bearings are ball bearings, specifically angular contact type; it takes two bearings to make a set as one bearing cannot be used alone. They do tend to Brinell ('dent') as they are fairly small for the loads involved IMO, and the contact angle is nearly vertical and that is what makes them require so much tightening and attention. A better way to go is to swap them out for tapered roller bearings, which you can buy in the same size and is a direct replacement. I tighten tapered roller bearings to about 5 ft. lbs. rather than the factory recommended 17 ft. lbs. as these type bearings have much more drag given the same end thrust (Easy Boys!).

Changing them is a bit of a pain and will take a few hours. The stem has to be removed from the headstock of the bike, then the inner, upper race has to be driven out using a dedicated bearing puller or a long drift and hammer. The inner, lower race is also a press bit but it is on the bottom of the stem- that too will require pulling or driving it off with a very shallow drift to get it started. None of it is particularly difficult work but it does take a bit of force coupled with a little finesse to remove the old races and install the new ones correctly.

Best of luck with that Martin.

Brian

oh cr@p...  this is going to rape my wallet...
Rick, thanks for the advice. I'll have it checked by some colleague with no financial interest in this matter, to see if it really is necessary to change the bearings....

Question about loose steering stem.  Would this cause a low speed bar wobble on decel? Twice it happened to me today. One I had both hands off bars, to adjust tank bag.

Yes, a classic sign of loose bearings.

Or a bad front tire, or wheel bearings..  I've had it do it to mine (C10) with a bad front tire.

 These had 80,000 miles on a 2009 C14 and were able to be cleaned and properly packed and left in and they feel great.

Although had I had brand new bearings I would have installed in them being in this far and all......

they are cheap (relatively...only about $40 in parts) it really is all about the labor to get in this far and do the work.

Thanks for the great pictures!

so I'm asking what did people who actually REPLACED these mofo's use, to extract the fixed seats from both ends, and the stem...?
I have not seen any pics yet, of the pullers/tooling/hints.. just verbage on doing a swap to tapered... and again with no photos or removal tools referenced.
knowing the issues using a typical type split seat puller ( don't work because the fork stops are in the way) I'm not buying the big $ kawi tools..

just asking,

Beuhler? Beuhler?..... Beuhler.....?

I used a brass drift, about 1/2" dia. X at least a  foot long, to remove the outer race. Tapped it out from the bottom, then ground the OD of said bearing race to use as a driver for the new race.

I used an old wood chisel to get a gap started under the inner race on the stem. Once said gap appeared (gently, by tapping in two points, 180 degrees out), I drove the race off the stem with above mentioned drift.

A puller would have been faster on the OD race but would not apply on the ID race; at least I have never seen a bearing puller that deep.

Brian

so I'm asking what did people who actually REPLACED these mofo's use, to extract the fixed seats from both ends, and the stem...?
I have not seen any pics yet, of the pullers/tooling/hints.. just verbage on doing a swap to tapered... and again with no photos or removal tools referenced.
knowing the issues using a typical type split seat puller ( don't work because the fork stops are in the way) I'm not buying the big $ kawi tools..

just asking,

Beuhler? Beuhler?..... Beuhler.....?

I used a brass drift, about 1/2" dia. X at least a  foot long, to remove the outer race. Tapped it out from the bottom, then ground the OD of said bearing race to use as a driver for the new race.

I used an old wood chisel to get a gap started under the inner race on the stem. Once said gap appeared (gently, by tapping in two points, 180 degrees out), I drove the race off the stem with above mentioned drift.

A puller would have been faster on the OD race but would not apply on the ID race; at least I have never seen a bearing puller that deep.

Brian

thanks B, I kinda figured that was the system, just wanted to make sure in case I wanna dig in there, I hate searching for tools in the middle of a dissassembled bike....

a little update on the matter from my bike. The notch that can be felt in the straight on position (actually, a tad to the right) got worse, but admittedly it's been a few thousand miles since the dealer first told me. A new bit of info he gave me is that the infamous TÜV also checks for this, and my bike, as it is, will not pass. I still have a year for that, though, so that's not the issue. What bothers me is that it started getting noticeable when driving at low speed, so I'm going to have the bearing changed the next couple of weeks, before a 2-up tour coming on with my girlfriend making use of every ounce of loading capacity of the bike. The dealer quoted around 55 for the parts (yes, they are just 40 in the US, but I'm stuck here in Germany) and 2,4 hs for the job (80/h).

I don't think that's too bad, Martin.