Originally Posted by gm1230126
Did you use loose ball bearings or retainers and are they in correctly. If you used loose bearings and have too many in that would cause what you have described.
Retainers. And yeah, they're in correctly.
The bearings are the originals that came in the headset; they looked to be fine, I couldn't see any reason to not re-use them.
Also, I assume that the top and bottom races and bearings are equal (they look it), but just in case, I switched the bearings+retainers between top and bottom. Symptoms exactly the same, though.