I brought another Raleigh Supercourse home from the bike exchange this weekend to clean up for sale and am having a problem with the head set bearings.

I removed the fork, cleaned the bearing races, replaced the loose bearings ( leaving one out both top and bottom) and re assembled everything.

When I adjusted the top nut to take out the play in the bearings I noticed that when the fork was rotated one way it would bind slightly. Turning it the other way there was no binding ( I was not turning it 360 deg as there is a cable stop on the fork which hits the frame if you turn it too much).

I also noted that when the front wheel was put into the fork it didn't align perfectly with the frame , being about 1/8" off center to the right looking from front to back.

I pulled on the fork blades a little and got the wheel to center in the fork and align properly but the dragging in the bearings worries me.

I did a close inspection of the frame and couldn't see any telltale signs of an impact. I also looked at the bearing race on the fork and it looks like it is seated properly.

What am I missing?

I think the bike will be rideable as is as a donation bike but I was hoping to put it in our big sale next week along side the other Super Course I just fixed up and and I can't let it go the way it is.

Pull the fork and look inside the head tube. It was not uncommon in the old days to have frame tubes poking into spaces where they had no business being and you might find this to be the case. I had a Peugeot with a seat tube that extended 1/4" into the BB shell. It was no problem until I wanted to install a plastic sleeve or, later, a cartridge bottom bracket.

Another possibility: Maybe the head tube faces aren't faced perfectly and aren't square with one another?

This is a classic sign of the bearings not being in alignment. If the cups and crown race are seated fully, then the problem is most likely that the head tube and/or fork crown race seat need to be milled. This requires expensive tools, so most likely done at your LBS.

Agreed with the bearings not being is parallel planes as a likely cause, although the Raleigh type headsets are very sensitive to proper ball counts. Very much so.


One work around without being able to machine the cup and crown seats is to replace the lower stack of the headset with a more common, less radial contact, cup and cone set. The more angular ball contact of the common loose ball headsets (other then the English/Raleigh types) is more forgiving of miss aligned seats. I have done this with a few headsets over the years.


Of course we trust hat the steerer's straightness has been established first. Andy

Fully agree very slightly bent steerer tube, or at the fork crown area, it only needs to be a few thou' over that length.

I'd try taking one more bearing out of the races.