Originally Posted by Kircules
ok...the "play" feels like the fork is too skinny for the frame by a milimeter, but it's the same fork that was on the bike originally. I'm leaning toward the idea that it's a cheap fork...
If it was someones beater b4 you got it & it had a hard life then the headtube may be ovalized from a collision or hard braking with a loose headset. Hopefully it's your brakes in that case because you can't tighten a headset in an ovalized headtube, it'll shudder anyway