An Unholy Union II: Wp Extreme 50mm Conventionals on a G/S

[hardwaregrrl]

So....what do you guys think did this? Should I be worried?



I plan on taking a real fine grit to it, and smooting it out. Maybe a little jb weld to take up the slack.

[One Less Harley]

Jenna can't really tell from the picture, if there is a grove in the stem and what the pitting is (bellow the race? then not a problem). You should be fine smoothing out the pitting. Unless the inner race is loose then there shouldn't be a problem with the stem. As the inner race is press fit and doesn't rotate on the stem.


Setting the headset bearings. what I do is tighten them up some and hold the front brake and rock the bike back and forth with my hand around the top bearing and feel for movement. If there is some tighten a little at a time till movement is just gone. Then put bike on center stand w/ front wheel off the ground, flop the bars from side to side make sure there is no drag. Center the front wheel, lightly tap the handle bar, it should take just a little nudge to move the bars, not much but just a red C hair of resistance.

also find an appropriate size tap and chase the inner stem threads....buy a brass, lead or rubber hammer.

[Airhead Wrangler]

Originally Posted by hardwaregrrl

So....what do you guys think did this? Should I be worried?

Judging by all the loose rollers on the floor it looks like the cage broke and got sucked down into the steering head tube where it gouged up your stem. Did you use cheap chinese bearings? It's OK. You can tell us.

[hardwaregrrl]

Originally Posted by Airhead Wrangler

Judging by all the loose rollers on the floor it looks like the cage broke and got sucked down into the steering head tube where it gouged up your stem. Did you use cheap chinese bearings? It's OK. You can tell us.

Nope. Unless BMW gets their shit from China! I will say that there was a few people helping me but not heeding my warning about tightening down the blind nut. And, the bearing cage that took a shit was a bit f-ed up when it went it. but I was assured it would be ok. I'm learning my lesson. That everyone around me that "have done this before" are full of shit. I'm much smarter than I give myself credit for. This will be done without "help". Can you tell I'm a bit miffed???

[hardwaregrrl]

Originally Posted by One Less Harley

If there is some tighten a little at a time till movement is just gone.

also find an appropriate size tap and chase the inner stem threads....buy a brass, lead or rubber hammer.

I tapped with a block of pine and a dead blow. Shouldn't have mucked the theads up but it seems to . It's a 20mm 1.5, hard to find just anywhere. I may just drop it at the machine shop in the morning.

Also, there is no "tightening" on this set up. YOu whack the top clamp to tighten, then you tighten the pinch bolts.

[ontic]

If timber and a dead blow was used then the threads can't be that mucked up- probably just the very beginning of the thread has been peened over. Just peen it back.

And miffed? Couldn't tell at all....

[Airhead Wrangler]

Originally Posted by hardwaregrrl

Can you tell I'm a bit miffed???

I would be. Was it overtorqued from the beginning or did it happen on one of the adjustments after you put some mileage on them.

[hardwaregrrl]

Originally Posted by Airhead Wrangler

I would be. Was it overtorqued from the beginning or did it happen on one of the adjustments after you put some mileage on them.

From the beginning. I explained how to install, but didn't sound good to my helpers, so lets crank down on "27", as the KTM dudes call the blind nut. But I mean, that seems like it should be the way it's done?! Sorry, I've had a rough day. It began when I was working out and stuck my hand in a fire ant mound. Then I removed 8 ticks between me and my dog....

oh, it was the lower bearing that took a shit, the one that had the cage jump off a bit on install. They're not as hardy as we think.

[ontic]

Sounds like a crappy day.

Hard to understand how you got that damage on the stem if it was the lower bearing that failed. I guess it must have just spat out a roller up that high? Must have been really wobbling around to do that

Here is hoping that this problem is easily and painlessly solved for you.
And a pox on those over-torquers
I'm out to pull apart my forks again.

[redboots]

Originally Posted by hardwaregrrl

I tapped with a block of pine and a dead blow. Shouldn't have mucked the theads up but it seems to . It's a 20mm 1.5, hard to find just anywhere.

Your machinist should have one and in case you ever need to know, that's the same size as used on the swing arm pivot threads. I bought one for that after the powder-coater fecked them up.
You could borrow it but its a bit of a long way...


Cheers,
John

[redboots]

Originally Posted by One Less Harley

....buy a brass, lead or rubber hammer.

I have my Dads old leather hammer... Perfect for countless adjustment operations

John

[redboots]

Originally Posted by ontic

Well, you and others seem to know what you are saying but that is the bit I don't get, in my mind, unless there is a little bit of preload then it is still 'loose'. Setting a bearing exactly on 'no play' is a minutely small target to hit and one that moves away with any bearing movement (race seating a touch deeper) or bearing wear and changes with thermal expansion- unless of course 'no play' is an acceptable 'grey band' in which case I think it must include a little a little preload on its upper limit and play on its lower.

You may have a point on preload but I think it should be kept in the super small loadings area... The stearing must still be able to slop to either side... to tight and you can induce weave at higher speeds.

Does this help? http://www.skf.com/portal/skf/home/p...newlink=1_0_83

Cheers,
John

[redboots]

Originally Posted by SOLO LOBO

If you have a G/S,
Also, the spec for the Ohlins spring is total length of 213mm and not a mm of pre-load per Dan Kyle Racing.

Mine is a GS - '95. Ohlins on the rear is 495mm total with a stroke of 80.
The setup manual says the spring preload should be 17mm... my spring may be a bit hard though... 695-31/95 198

Cheers,
John

[ontic]

Warning- long and dawdling post-

I just tried a few experiments...
it really felt like my steering head was a bit loose- not wobbling at all- just compared to how I set my R90 it felt loose. Ie the bars would fall quickly and all too easily to the side whereas on the R90 I have learned to aim for a slower fall to the side. Of course this is a very subtle difference, but my feeling was strong on this.

anyway,
I tried the original and my own suggested methods of tightening the bearings- (loosen pinch bolts and tap or belt away on the triple)
Neither worked at all.
Still very loose.
Then in combination with the above I tried torquing up the stem nut a bit, to a little beyond where I thought it was wise to torque that nut, that didn't work either- that is I chickened out at a point where it had not tightened up the steering.
So I pulled the forks out and removed the stem to see what was happening- it seems my stem had developed a very subtle step/ridge under the bottom of the top bearing. This was barely perceptible but was enough to stop the top bearing from sliding any further down the stem by any of the recommended (and not recommended) tightening techniques.

I then gently sanded and polished this step out so that the top bearing can once again interference-slide up and down that area.
Then I once again tried setting the steering-head 'torque'. This time without the forks in the triple.
What I was trying to do was to set it the way I have set my R90- tighten it up till it is a little too tight (where the steering begins to stiffen a little), then slowly back it off until the bars fall to the side- gently, not too quickly.

What I was finding is that it was very hard to tighten the bearings until they felt too tight, and the only way I could begin to even approach this feeling was to really torque up that blind nut- and it still wasn't getting me there.
To keep an eye on things I was using a deflecting beam torque wrench. As the torque crept up to 10-15 ft·lbs I started to worry about that little aluminium blind nut with so little thread.
Why I kept going was that it felt like something was bedding in- the torque was rising too slow for the rotation of the nut.
So I put the other blind nut I have from the ktm triples- which has much more thread but has a very inconveniently large size nut head- and kept tightening.

here is the difference


of course as I was looking for a washer to pack the blind nut up so that I could get the huge socket to grip on it, I also discovered what redboots just told Jenna, that the swing arm pivot things have the same thread (I used the nut as a washer on the blind nut) and might be useful as a thread chaser



So, I kept tightening up the steering stem until it actually felt tight rather than bedding in.
I can only assume that somehow I had not seated the lower bearing hard enough down the stem (I really put that thing down there though- had a steel sleeve that fit over the stem and perfectly hit the bearing and I whaled on it till it felt and sounded completely bedded- yes, a press would have been nice)

the torque got up to about 35 ft-lbs before it felt like it was actually tightening like it should have been. After that I could slack it off to loose in half a turn, and then quickly get back to a hard torque, that actually stiffened the steering, rather than slowly torquing up like before and not really doing much.

So, I guess my problem might have been that I didn't seat the lower bearing down hard enough, and in my test riding (barely a few Km's) it seated deeper, and became loose (not that I noticed) and knocked a small step on the stem which then meant none of the tightening methods for the bearings worked...

Considering I am currently using old races with new bearings I can't think of anything else that would have had to bed in like my torque figures seemed to be showing?

Regardless of all that, now I can actually use the blind nut, quite easily, to get to what feels to me like the right 'preload' on the bearings (not much at all, but when I get the forks back in I'll take a torque reading of it).
I cannot see myself actually using the ktm instructions to tighten that blind nut. It just seems so.... blind
It just doesn't work well for me. From the abuse I just put that nut and stem through, with no damage to the threads, I think it is plenty strong enough to get the small amount of torque required for zero-play or minimal preload (whatever the hell we call it)- so long as whatever happened to me is not happening to someone else.



next post about fork internals.

[ontic]

Once again I spent the evening bathing in fork oil

I cleaned out the compression fork, and it was a bit different to my rebound. No rust on the new spring this time (must have been some moisture in the rebound I guess?)
The oil was not so dirty either.
For the moment I have filled it with ATF (half the price of fork oil, and I can see a lot more fork oil baths before this is done).

I then went back into the rebound fork- drained it again, and got the guts out and gave it another much more thorough clean.
I then took the rebound needle out so that I could glue the adjuster back into the top of it- and this is where it gets interesting for Jenna,
Jenna, you don't actually need that special tool to swap out your bent rebound needle- you can avoid pulling the fork down that far and just pull the needle straight out the top.
basically,
you take the fork cap off,
then you've got to deal with that horrible little snap ring thing that keeps the adjuster from screwing out- it is a bugger of a thing for me, maybe you'll get it easier than I can (I screw the adjuster all the way in, then with an ice pick press down the side of the snap ring- it knocks it out of its groove at an angle and allows you to remove it),
once the snap ring is out, you screw the adjuster all the way out, making sure that you are careful not to lose the two ball bearings and spring which are inside the adjuster-
at that point your adjuster and the needle-extension will then either come out as one piece, or like mine originally did, only the adjuster will come out and the needle will stay in there. I removed the needle tonight by probing a tig filler rod into the hole on the end of the needle and then angling it a little as I pulled it out- it seemed to be held in by oil suction (also meaning my needle was firmly seated and rebound damping was at maximum)


here is the needle and adjuster


the business end


This is actually what I could do with some advice on.
I need to know how deep to glue the needle onto the adjuster- it can go all the way which seems like the logical way to do it, but there is a sharp old burnt black glue on the adjuster that makes it look like it might not have been that far seated





I'm thinking I should just push it all the way in and glue it- it would be the logical way to do it.
Also, what glue to use. I've got medium strength loctite 243 on hand. The glue that was originally used was clear.
Is this an application where superglue would do just fine? (no heat to degrade it).
I can of course buy some other fancy tube of stuff, like another $13-20 tube of loctite, but I'd rather not

thanks for any advice-

and Jenna, let me know if you are going to attempt to swap your rebound needles- if so I'll wait to glue this one in to see if yours come out whole and you can tell me how deep to set the adjuster- if not I'll just seat it all the way in and see how it goes.
Cheers,

EDIT- by the way- I don't know how someone managed to bend your rebound needle- aside from the hollow bit at the top where the adjuster glues in, it is solid steel- very sturdy The only thing I can think of is that someone removed it (either the way the manual shows, or the way I did it) and then put it back in and threaded it up with the end of the needle not seated properly, which then bent it...?