I don't know why the shop did it wrong, but we can walk you through doing it right. You have a flat spanner that fits on the adjustable cup, right? It should look like this.



You also need that hooked spanner, so yes, go ahead and buy it. You might be able to get by using a big channel lock instead. You'll mar that notched nut, but maybe you don't care. I would do it with my bike, but some won't do it with theirs.

The notched thing is not a washer; it's actually a nut. It's somewhat redundant, as most headsets just use the top nut as a locknut.

Put the bike on the floor. You don't do this adjustment with the bike in a stand. Face the bike from the front, and put the front wheel between your legs. Hold the headset wrench with your left hand and the hook wrench with your right hand. Adjust the cup approximately and tighten the notched nut onto it. Do this by holding the wheel with your legs, hold the cup still with the wrench in your left hand, then turning the notched nut with your right hand. Once the notched nut is tight against the cup, use your right hand to apply the front brake. Rock the bike back and forth to see if there is play. If there is, you need to repeat and tighten the cup. If there is no play, lift the front of the bike and make sure the cup is not too tight. You want the front end to spin easily. If it is too tight, redo, loosening the cup. It takes some trial and error.

Once it's adjusted with no play but also no binding, hold the wheel with your knees, hold the cup with the flat wrench, and tighten the locknut with a big wrench.

This is great, thanks so much.
Yes I do have one of those headset wrenches already - it's what I was using with a regular wrench to tighten everything before I took it back to the shop (would use that + the top nut).
I was basically doing this already - just with only tightening the cup and top nut because I didn't have the other wrench (or know, really).
So I'll order that wrench for the notched nut and give it a shot.

That's what I was thinking too. I've fixed a similar problem by installing an additional washer under the lock nut so that the locknut can snug up on different, less worn, threads.

So that notched wrench I linked to above is not the correct one. It arrived today and its way too big. Anyone link me to what to buy?
I'l keep this tool in case I ever need it for fixed gear lockrings or whatever, not a big deal.

What size headset wrench do you need? I just reorganized my workshop and I've got headset wrenches in a box to take to the co-op. If you PM me exactly what you need and your address, I'll mail you one.

That is called a "Hook Wrench".

If you measure the ring size, you should be able to order it online, or pick one up at a local hardware store.

I tweeted at Park Tool for some help and they were a little bewildered because they said


But it seems perfectly normal to a lot of y'all and people in C&V as well...

Headsets with notched lockrings in addition to a typical top nut were fairly common on bike-boom era Japanese bikes and some others. The Hozan C-205 hook spanner has two different radius hooks; one for larger bottom bracket lockrings, the other for smaller headset lockrings and track lockrings:



Park Tools must have lost all their old sandal-wearing bearded guys who know this kind of thing.

So far I've seen those hook wrenches used for other things like bottom brackets, but haven't encountered them on a headset.

You could probably replace the entire locknut with a non-threaded spacer, or a stack of spacers.

Personally I dislike the steer tubes with the grove for a lock ring. If the ring should twist while trying to remove it, it is quick to chew up threads. It also creates a weak spot in the steer tube.

Perfect. Ordered on Amazon, should be here tomorrow! Thanks.

For real hahahaha. I was a little surprised to see customer support from a company like Park Tool who literally makes everything to fix bikes, didn't know what to do.

Science guy,
I took apart a headset on a Bianchi today with the same set up. The ring with the three spanner notches is actually the lock nut for the headset adjustment and the spacers above it are only for closing down the headset, like if there was a cable support in the mix. HTH, MH

Success! Wish it were a little more snug, but it'll do for my small needs.

So, I spent about 3 hours futzing with 3 wrenches trying to find a happy medium where the headset was tight enough to not have play with rocking the front wheels, but loose enough not to feel the grinding of the bearings and it "locking" into the various pitted areas. And it did not work. I was about 30 seconds away from ripping the thing out with a blow torch, spitting on it, crunching it into an industrial compressor then tossing it into an industrial shredder, then launching it into the sun..

So I'm taking it to another shop this week to have them rip it out, diagnose the headtube & fork, and put in another one without a notched washer and make sure it sits proper.

Replacing the threaded spacer with an ordinary washer likely will make it much easier..

But, for the indexing issue, you likely have a row of pits in the crown race.

You can purchase generic crown races that may help, and are quite cheap.

Or, if you have bearing cages, try loose bearings, + 1 ball.

As [MENTION=392454]CliffordK[/MENTION] notes, replacing the crown race is the "best practice" means of fixing the "indexed steering" issue. If you're not ready for that yet, using loose balls rather than retained balls usually allows at least one more ball to be added to the race, which means the balls won't fall back into their old pits. This can get some extra service life out of a pitted race. If you already have loose balls in the lower stack, removing the crown race and rotating it to a different position also can give the balls a fresh surface to rest.

The other option is to re-clock the bottom cup. By removing the cup and turning it slightly before reinstalling it, you “misalign” any pits in the cups. Unfortunately, this takes more tools - you need a bearing cup remover and a bearing press. You can use an old screwdriver to remove the cup, but alignment is critical to reinstall. You can do it with all thread, bolts and blocks, but you have to be very careful to avoid damaging the head tube.

n00b question: Isn't the crown race not part of a headset? so if i ask the shop to replace the headset does the crown race get replaced as well? I thought it was?
I enjoy trying to work on things myself but I think this is a little beyond my comfort and i don't have the necessary tools right now.
I may ask the shop to use loose balls instead of caged so as to try to avoid this happening again so quickly in the future.

Crown race is included with the headset, but can also be purchased separately.

In most cases you can pop the crown race off the fork, rotate it 90 degrees, and re-install it.

then pound out the lower cup, rotate 90 degrees in the opposite direction, and re-install it.

that will give a somewhat worn headset a new lease on life.

now over on CR I did a little study about headset loads vs head tube length. To sum it up, small frames with short head tubes are very rough on headsets. it's the leverage imposed by the ratio of fork length to headtube length.

There's a product called a gorilla lock nut that has an allen screw built into the headset top nut such that it will not move. Highly recommended for problems like this.

Mark Petry
Bainbridge Island, WA USA

Dont over look the fact the cups may be ovalized from a hard curb hit.

This isn't surprising. The headtube on the bike is pretty small, and my daily commute in Houston is a banger. The roads are rough - most are cement sections so the gap between them is an impact every 50 feet. The [paved] trail I ride has roots, cracks (from shifting ground in the coastal plain along a bayou), stray rocks, etc. Not to mention the 4 wood plank bridges I go over that basically feel like riding down a WWII bombed street in Europe. And speed bumps on the road. It's bad.

I have no qualms about having to tighten it every week or so because of general pounding it gets, but with the setup the way it is currently I can't adjust it properly. Hopefully the fork isn't damaged too much.....

Haven't hit any curbs, but, see above...

If it comes loose again you might want to try some thread locker on the top nut.

Cheers and good luck

I agree completely, except have a BETTER shop install the headset. Once the headtube faces have been faced and are aligned (the crown race seat also needs to be checked for alignment and proper sizing), a correctly done installation that is fully torqued and not overly draggy should last more than a year (maybe a LOT longer) unless you have very hard usage.