Bicycle Mechanics - kilo tt headset bearings

While waiting on a few things to come in the mail for my tt, I decided to take advantage of the downtime and go ahead and clean everything up. Well I took off my bearings to grease them, and now I'm having trouble getting them back on the right way. I know I've done something wrong, because it isn't turning smoothly and sounds a bit scratchy. I've been looking online, but can't find a picture to illustrate how the race, seal, bearings, etc. are supposed to be oriented. Can anyone help me?

If it's a cup/cone headset with balls in retainers, odds are you put a retainer in upside down. Or you might be missing a spacer or shim making the upper cup beach on part of the lower someplace. Take it apart and take your time re-assembling one step at a time and checking the feel as you go along. BTW- some headsets have different size balls in the upper and lower bearings, and reversing them can cause your problem.

In the future, use the "breadcrumbs" method when dis-assembling unfamiliar stuff.

Lay a few sheets of paper towel on the bench and as you remove parts lay them down in sequence with the same orientation (up is up, or right is up) in a row as you remove them. Now before you do anything else, like clean them, take a digital photo so if you mix them up later, you can duplicate the sequence, and find your way back to where you started.

What is the type (threaded or threadless), make and model of your headset? Having that information would make it easier to diagnose possible assembly problems.

It's a threadless cane creek vp-a31. Here's a picture of the parts that I can't figure out on the top:
http://s257.photobucket.com/albums/hh214/loganadr/bike/?action=view&current=Photoon2011-01-09at1549.jpg

from my first response --


If it's a cup/cone headset with balls in retainers, odds are you put a retainer in upside down.

Not sure of where the the thin seal goes (probably last) but the bearing retainer is upside down with respect to the cone in your photo. If you put it in that way that's your problem.

BTW- same goes for the bottom bearing so be sure to check that one too.

so basically just flip the bearing, and I should be good?

so basically just flip the bearing, and I should be good?

Yes, unless there's another problem besides.

But I assume you didn't install these at random so check the lower one too. For both retainers the open ball area (top on the photo) goes to the cup side. I phrased it this way because the lower bearing is mirrored, so the bearing in the photo is right side up if it were going to the bottom bearing.