Originally Posted by
hueyhoolihan
if you don't want to buy a starnut, here's what i would do.
if you are right handed, assemble the fork, headset and stem, leaving the two stem bolts loose. push down, hard, on the stem while holding the stem straight WRT the front wheel. with your right hand tighten one of the stem bolts sufficiently to hold the stem in place. take a breath, then tighten the other bolt. check for slop. if not satisfied, loosen the stem bolts and try again.
it might take a few attempts to get it right. and bouncing the front end of the bike off the ground while holding the stem in place, between attempts, may eliminate a consistent looseness.
this process, if successful, does not compromise in any way the security of the headset/stem interface. the top cap and bolt may be attached, after the fact, for cosmetic reasons, if preferred.
I tried it, pushed really hard on the stem and tightened both the stem bolts while doing so and the play is suddenly minimal if not completely gone but I'm not sure of how long term this solution will be? So the problem seems to be somewhat gone now.
Now I'm just curious what the heck is up with that headset cap mechanism because I'm fairly sure now that it ain't a star nut. Maybe it doesn't even set the preload and is just cosmetic and the headset has to be tightened the hard way by pushing down on the stem and then tightening the stem bolts?
Once again it's quite old (almost 20 years now) so it might as well be so but I really don't know how they did things back then (was the star nut design even invented?) because frankly enough I didn't even exist back in those days, it's my dads bike and I'm just riding it till I have enough money to buy myself a somewhat reasonable downhill/freeride bike.