Originally Posted by
stryper
•There was a good 3mm of space between the top spacer and the top of the fork, plenty of room. With the plug tightened all the way down the top spacer could still twist if I gave it a little force which tells me it wasn't being compressed enough.
I'm going to guess that 3mm isn't "plenty of room". get a bigger spacer up top and see what that does for you. there can be a lot of slack to take up in a sealed cartridge headset that you can't necessarily feel. The headset doesn't wobble if you hold the front brake and rock the bike, but the fork will slide up and down in the headset. It's still loose, and will sound loose while riding but it's a different kind of loose to diagnose than a caged or loose ball headset.