Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Headset Adjustment?

I thought Id add my .02 since I just installed the All Balls kit on my America....

First....I did not like the idea of using bering made in China. I ordered the All Balls kit with the intent of returning it after I found a better set of berings. HA!
After seeing the dust shields and comparing them with OEM I knew I needed to use the ones form All Balls.
After having a couple local bering places look up berings and NOT being able to find the right ones and both places telling me the berings in the kit were good I decided to bite it and use the All Balls kit.

Installation went fairly easily but I did want to share a couple of tips in case anyone else tries this....

* I had my upper & lower yokes chromed so I had the steering stem pressed out by my local shop then once they came back I had the stem pressed back in as well. So I did not have to go through the hassle of trying to remove my lower bering race...sorry, no advice here.
* To install the new bering race on the lower yoke I used the old OEM race (upside down and cut) and a pipe (the end of my jack handle worked very well for this) along with a mallet.
- I cut the old OEM bering race with a cutting wheel to allow for easier removal once I got the new race in place. By doing this it gave me a solid edge bering to bering surface as well as a larger lip to set the pipe against.
* I heated up the bering race and stem with a heat gun and it helped. Still not easy but with a few good whacks it went on nicely.

For the races that needed to pressed into the neck...
* I got them in initially by using my mallet and a piece of flat metal to smack them in level.
The needed to go in further so...
* I again used the old OEM races, upside down as described above and a piece flat metal to drive them in the rest of the way.
The OEM races popped out with a large flat head screwdriver once they were driven in completely.

All in all this wasn't so bad but again, I did not have to try and get the old race off myself.
I was pretty focused on getting this done so I didn't get any pictures for you. Maybe when I do Karen's Ill snap some start to finish.