Hi all, I was doing and oil change this evening when I had the bike on the center stand, I moved the handlebars and I can just detect a very slight notch in center of steering. can really only be felt if I hold the bars in my fingertips, and I know it would probablt be more noticeable with the forks and all weight off the triple tree. I haven't noticed any handling issues however. Bike has 82,000 km on it now, and I have never opened or lubed the head bearings since new.
1) Is this something that needs my immediate attention or will it most likely be able to wait until winter storage for replacement?
2) Should I get a headstock bearing race installer/removal tool set or is it just as easy with punches?
3) I would only consider replacing with oem balls as I'm not sure I'm interested in fussing with the aftermarket tapered rollers.
Thoughts?
I got into replacing mine when I was doing a fork oil change at 96,000 miles. While the forks, wheel, etc. were out I happened to bump a bar end and noticed the handlebars self-centered after the bump. Upon a closer inspection there was a slight detent in the straight ahead position. I had checked for this now and then and the mass of the forks and wheel always covered up the detent. So if you can feel a dent in the races with the forks assembled I'd fix it now but that's just me. We don't have a winter lay-up down here.
I pretty much did what previous posters covered. I knocked out the races in the head stock with a long drift. It was tap tap and they were out. Squatting under the bike and knocking out the top one took a moment longer because it was awkward.
Because I had read that it was fairly difficult for a DIYer to get the proper preload on the OEM type caged ball bearings and that tapered roller bearings were more tolerant of shade tree mechanic efforts I went with the latter. The difference in cost isn't much when you look at how often this job needs to be done.
I went to Harbor Freight or Northern Tool with the old races and purchased a couple of big cheap sockets to tap in the new races. First problem when the new All Balls bearings arrived. The sockets did not exactly match the new races. The OEM races are not as tall and have a larger flat area to press against and the 33 or 36 mm sockets I purchased just fit inside the taller races on the tapered bearings and I was not able to use them so I broke out a set of bronze drifts and punches which took a little longer to use. Again, coming at the top one from underneath was a bit awkward but using drifts to drive in the new races was not a problem.
Setting up the preload was hit and miss but accomplished to the service manual specs as measured with my fish scale. I had to take the top bridge apart a few times but basically the lock nut is tightened to torque spec to seat the bearings and then I had to back it off to just taking up finger tight or basically no torque at all. When the top bridge was tightened down with the top nut to it's high torque the results finally met Honda spec for pull on a fork tube. I used a waterproof marine wheel bearing grease to pack the bearings.
That was almost exactly 50,000 miles ago and I check the races for self-centering and play every 15,000 or so when I change the fork oil. There has been none to date.
A side benefit of replacing the bearings in my bike was the high speed Pan Weave was almost eliminated. it shows up now and then but the onset is near top speed instead of 110 to 115 as it was before. I've did some other suspension work and changed tire brands too so I can't prove it was the bearings but I think the OEM brinelled bearing race was a big part of it. Caged rollers are great, very high quality feel, when set up right but when any wear or play allows hammering and there is a tremendous amount of pressure brought to bear on a tiny metal to metal area of contact between ball and race and a dent is the result. Tapered rollers have a much greater surface area to absorb the hammering load.
This is not a hard job if you are somewhat experienced with replacing and preloading wheel bearings.
