JonD

Hi All,
I'm servicing my 9 month old Ridgeback Flight 02, which has integrated cartridge races top and bottom of the headtube. They had a reasonable coating of grease on them when I took them out, but now I'm refitting them I am not sure whether I should grease everything.

The headtube doesn't appear to have any cups in it, just a 45 degree chamfer machined into the aluminium wall at the top, and a 45 degree chamfer on top of the steerer.

Having read this article https://chrisking.com/files/pdfs/Int2...sExplained.pdf
it reminded me of something similar I had read about the importance of *not* greasing bearing seats in other applications, the theory being that you want the race to be the part that moves, not the shell in its seat. Plus if the shell can move around easily on the grease, it will exacerbate the wear described in the article, especially if the grease picks up dirt etc. The article was rather scary regarding irreparably wearing out the seat!

But, equally I don't want to find the shell becomes stuck in the headtube the next time I service it.

So, what's the wisdom on grease/anti-seize for installing bearings (not inside the races themselves, just the fit to the frame/tube)? Grease the seats lightly or not, and should there be any grease on the steerer tube where there bearing touches it?

Many thanks!
Jon

fietsbob

Grease is in the Bearing cartridge , for the bearings , Only reason to put grease on the outside is to keep the steel bearing and aluminum in the frame

from galvanically corroding together like a Stuck seat Post. But at least once the fork is out you can Bang out the Bearings to replace them .
the contact area is a very narrow ring . so its not quite the same..

this bike get really wet and Muddy every time you ride It on the Trails?


I dont Grease the Tange-Cane Creek Integrated bearings outside, when I Worked on My Koga WTR , but its a Trekking Bike with Mudguards on it
ridden for travel and commuting , not out in the woods doing Single track.

JonD

Hi,
thanks for the reply. This is a flat-bar road bike and rarely goes off-road. I do pick up some grit in the road-spray though, and I don't run with any fenders. I was pretty shocked how much muck was in various places when I came to disassemble the bike.

Cheers
Jon

fietsbob

maybe fill the lower Gap with an O ring .. Pipe cleaners etc .

Back in the day we cut a ring out of old inner tubes and put it over the lower headset races, then put the fork in.. Instant sealed Bearing.

Andrew R Stewart 

Grease or anti seize, your choice, the outsides of the bearings before inserting them into the seats. I also do the same to the crown race. Done so for 40+ years. Andy- whose headsets don't creak.

HillRider

+1 I also grease both the exterior of the cartridges and seats of headsets. It prevents both corrosion and noise and the seats have never worn.

FBinNY 

I use a stiff anti-seize grease. This stuff is the consistency of peanut butter and is not suited as a ball bearing grease.

The grease serves two purposes.

1- it's a weather barrier and prevents water wicking between the two parts and making mischief.
2- it acts as a bedding compound, allowing the bearing find it's best place and prevents creaking later on.

There's plenty of latitude here, and just about anything except a dry fit will work. Even dry fits work, but if they creak, you'll go back to bedding the bearing in something.

JonD

Thanks for all the great advice guys. I think you've convinced me to stick with some sort of grease/anti-seize. On Andy's point though I would say that 40 year old headsets won't have these cup-less integrated bearing seats which are cut into the actual aluminium tubing. I'm now just paranoid that if I wear the seat in the head tube the frame will be junk
Just hoping someone can allay my fears!

Andrew R Stewart 

JonD- The only 40+ year old headset that's on my bikes is on top of the seat. I run either Stronglite A9 roller bearings or Chris Kings, all traditional cup in frame styles. At work I see a LOT of integrated that make noise. They are almost all dry around the bearing and seats and often in the bearing too. I peal off seals, flush and lube them if I don't have replacements on the shelf often. Not much difference is how a bearing needs to be serviced, just the shapes of the metal are different. Andy.

JonD

Thanks Andrew,
so no problems of the seats wearing out? Excellent. I wasn't really keen on the idea of a dry fit, and now I'm happy!

Jed19

OP, very timely thread. I spoke to an engineer at Cane Creek this morning about a little gap (about one and a half mm) between the top of the head tube and the bottom of the bearing cover on my LeMond Buenos Aires. I was worried about dirt/water contamination at this point. He told me this is a common issue with manufacturing tolerance from frame manufacturers. He told me there is really nothing I could do about it, but advised that I take apart and grease my IS2 headset once every year.

I had always thought of threadless headsets not needing any constant maintenance/servicing, but I'll have to start doing so now.

FBinNY 

Somewhere along the line, we forgot everything we knew about headsets. Well made traditional headsets were designed with an understanding of such complexities as gravity, wind and weather. It was SOP to have upper cups with skirts that overlapped the lower race so the headset naturally shed water and wind or wind-borne rain and dust couldn't blast in sideways and contaminate the bearing.

Far too many modern headsets lack this common sense design feature. Part of the problem is that integrated headsets don't lend themselves well to overlapping skirts, but that can't be the only reason since skirts were lacking on many headsets even before the advent of IH designs.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if we let some of today's bike designers shingle a roof.