Cleaning headset cart bearings
 

Hi all

I dissembled my frame for a powder coat and the cartridge bearings on the Cane Creek S2 headset seem pretty dirty with old/contaminated grease on the outside. How should I clean and re-lube them? I figure immersing them in any sort of solvent would be a very bad idea so would just paper towels and fresh grease work?

Solvent shouldn't hurt them.

Are you able to pry out the seals? If so you can treat the metal parts like any other bearings.

Repack with the grease of your choice, reinstall the (cleaned) seals and you are good to go... :beer:

+1. Solvents like traditional (not new environmentally friendly) OMS, WD40, turpentine, etc. work great. Less desirable are water based solvents like Simple Green etc. though they can be used if not left in contact with the bearing for long periods of time, are thoroughly rinsed off, and the bearings quickly dried and lubricated thereafter. You don't want to get any water based cleaner/solvent under a bearing seal without being able to completely clean it out.

There isn't really any seal to pry off. Once the top cap and stem are removed the dust cover just lifts off and there is a cartridge bearing and compression ring on the top side and a cart bearing on the bottom. The cart bearings have a colored seal in the center of the ring that I was not planning to touch. So should I rinse them off with a nonpolar solvent like turpentine and then coat the parts in fresh grease when putting it back together?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ed_view-en.png

yes there is a seal on the bearing itself, if there were no seal, it would not have bearings, it would be a bushing. I can see the seal on the top bearing in the picture, can not see it on the bottom in that representation.
That said, bearings are cheap, you lbs likely has them. I think I spent about $6 last time I replaced them on one of my bikes.

As noted above, before you fret over these bearings too much it's worth finding out how much they cost to replace.

Having said that, I've pried off the seals on headset cartridge bearings before with a jewelers screwdriver and flushed them out with solvent and repacked with fresh grease. The seals usually get a little bent but it's better than not maintaining them. If you do it right you can make the bearings feel like new again. (The "colored seal" you refer to is the one that needs to be pried off.)

If they are shot you might try these folks: CANE CREEK HEADSET BEARINGS FROM REAL WORLD CYCLING

First, just wipe them clean with a rag. If they're smooth, just put them back in. The outside of the cartridge bearing has nothing to do with the bearing's function, so there's no need to use any solvent to clean the outside. If they're gritty, either pry off the seals, clean and re-lube, or just buy new cartridges. It doesn't hurt to put some grease on the parts that touch when you re-assemble the headset, and maybe coat the seal with grease to bolster the seal. But all the moving parts for a cartridge bearing are on the inside adn cleaning or greasing the outside does nothing to improve performance. You can easily test performance by just moving the inner rotating part and feeling if it's smooth or not.

I don't think there is anything wrong with the bearings as I just noticed the entire inside was very dirty when I took the headset apart. I think just cleaning the outside with a rag and some solvent and some fresh grease on the outer surfaces should be fine.