Bicycle Mechanics - Headset stiff and always snaps back to center??

My road bike aheadset is having problems. When I move the bars right and left, I can feel the bars coming back to the center in a groove. Someone told me that there might be some pitting and Im may need to replace or move the bearings? My question: can I fix this on my own? I dont have much tech experience, and my road Zinn book isnt to detailed on the issue. If I need to get things replaced, what would be the average lbs cost? thanks,

Yep, sounds like your bearing races are shot. There is a term for this, but it escapes me at the moment. Brindled, Turnelled, or tremelled or something wierd like that.

Cost to remove and reinstall a new headset shouldn't be that much, the shop where I worked charged about $20 for it, $15 if you were a regular customer. It's not difficult, just requires some specific tools. I can do it at home, but sometimes it's not pretty.

A headset press is required. Park Tools makes a very nice one that costs about $125. I made one at home with some large washers and a piece of all-thread, and some large nuts (the threaded kind, not those attached to my body).

Taking the old one out is also easy if you're going to thrash it anyways. It involves a large screwdriver and a hammer.

L8R

Ahhh, for those price ranges - the bike shop sounds good. What causes this problem, can I still ride it until I take it in?

Your headset is brinnelled. This likely happened when either a)you hit something really hard, or b) you over-tightened your headset, most likely by using a pipe wrench to tighten the ring nuts.

Either way, it's shot. Unless you posess both a headset press and a crown-race slide hammer, it's a job for your LBS.

So, Im looking at a new headset. Would it be worth it to get something like a Chris King headset - they appear to last forever. Or is there something else out there that is solid, but less the 100 bucks.

Either way, it's shot. Unless you posess both a headset press and a crown-race slide hammer, it's a job for your LBS.

Never say die! :)
Nikos, try overhauling your headset and checking the bearings and races before going for the replacement. If everything looks good, you can repack or replace the bearings and hopefully, it will go away. If you have cartridge bearings, maybe you can just replace those instead of the whole headset (you can do this yourself). The only tools you need are (assuming threadless - I recall you mentioning aheadset) a hex wrench to pull the stem and headset bolt and maybe a mallet to whack the steerer to get it out of there.
See here for more info-
http://www.bikeforums.net/barnettes/barnetts_ch11.pdf

If, however, the races are dented like Dave indicates, then he is right, you will need a new one. Even with the proper tools, you may still wish to have it installed by your LBS because you may want to have the head tube faced and reamed before installing the new hardware.

As for riding with it. When my headset was out of adjustment once, it thunked a bit and drove me bananas. If you can live with it, you should still be able to ride it until it until gets so bad that it stops turning. As far as I know, you will continue to do more damage to only the headset which you will replace anyway.

- Jeff

CK make the best headsets in the world, probably. I'm not sure its worth fitting one unless you have a really swanky lightweight road bike, or you are travelling around the world.
Cheaper headsets work well if they are fitted properly. I just had a £12 Tange, steel headset fitted to my commuter, and Ive got no complaints.

Depending on the amount of stiffness and the degree of "snap-back" you are experiencing, you might have bent your fork tube. This is the tube connected to your fork that travels inside your head tube.

The result can be similar to what you described, but very noticeable.

It might be difficult to notice with your naked eye, but check to see if the headset meshes perfectly where the head tube and the fork meet.

Brinnell devised a method for measuring steel hardness about 120 years ago. It was done by pressing a ball bearing down into the steel surface being measured with a certain force. The size of the indentation in the suface then provided the measure of the hardness. It doesnt work with very hard steels as the ball is deformed more than the surface being measured.