I've been working on a new project for awhile, yet another Raleigh Gran(d) Sport(s). This one was going to be Grander and Sportier, with a lot of gugificazione applied. The last part of frame preparation was installing the headset. After facing and chasing the head tube, I pressed in the headset upper race and lower cup. The lower pressed in fine, the upper was a bit off from parallel, but nothing I hadn't seen before, so I continued on. After pressing the upper in flush with the head tube, I saw this.



I felt a giant rock growing in my stomach.

The head tube is now bent. Short of a huge amount of work, this frame is toast.

Hadn't seen this before, obviously haven't done this before. I've searched through the interwebs and couldn't find anything similar, but I'm guessing this isn't the first time this has happened.

Although this is a full 531 frame, I'm pretty sure the head tube is a much cheaper/weaker grade of steel.

I went ahead and installed the headset to see if there was by some miracle a way to salvage this. It was clear to me that there was no way this was going to work correctly.

**********With that paint and lug lining, it will look good on the wall????


'Ah crap' is putting it mildly.

Aww, crap! No wait, you already said as much. 😉 Sometimes God throws us a curveball, just to keep us humble. Don't beat yourself up too much over it though, it was just human error, not a crime.

That's sad.
What press did you use? Did it need a lot of force?

One of these.

Didn't seem like excessive force. No cheater bar used.

I've never seen that happen either, weird. A real bummer.

Step away from the bat....

sorry dude that sucks

Rewinding it in my mind, facing and chasing started with the faces covered with powder coat. I faced and chased the top first, in the recommended fashion, then the bottom, cutting until there was fresh metal top and bottom. That tells me the faces were parallel at that point. My tool chases the inside of the head tube at the same time as it faces, so the cups didn't bottom out on something inside.

The head tube is seamed, typical for lower end 531 production frames of that period, so it was most probably a weaker material to start with, but I've faced and chased a lot of old Raleighs and other frames of this quality with no issues.

Bummer, to say the least. I've never seen that happen before either. You faced and chased prior to installation and there's nothing else you could have done.

I suspect you are correct about the bean counters at Raleigh subbing in muffler pipe for the head tube to save a couple bucks/quid.

Sad is right, so close to a project completed.

+1 don't beat on yourself!

I have half a mind to hang it from a tree and go to work on it.

But I had some cool new things I wanted to show off to you guys. I'll have to wait till I chill out before sharing.

Looks like the top tube is also bulged? Sure it wasn't already there? Would a headset press do that?

Good eye, yes, the top tube is also bulged.

I don't start work on these vintage frames until I go over the whole thing, sight down the tubes, evey put a straight edge on them.

So, nope, it was straight when it started. The top race was a few mm off of parallel when it started, but I've had that happen before, and they straighten right out.

Bummer! I've seen that happen on only other bike in my life. That one was definitely user error, as the head tube buckled far away from the lug.

It was not unusual BITD for production mfrs to save a penny or two by using a cheaper HT. Every Lejeune I have ever seen uses a seamed head tube, for example. Usually not a problem because HTs are pretty thick-walled anyway.

I say that if the fork turns without binding, and it doesn't pull when riding, go ahead and ride it. The stresses on the upper lug are much lower than the lower lug. Replacing a head tube isn't an easy job as I'm sure you're aware. But easier than a top tube IME.

That's a drag! I don't have enough experience messing with bike frames to say I've done more than nick the corner of a lug while doing filing work, but I know the feeling from other hobbies... No bueno!

That's nuts. Sorry for your loss.

Yeah, I noticed the top tube bulge as well. Still can't figure out how pressing headset cups would cause this, particularly as you made 100% certain the head tube was ready to accept the headset via face/chase.

Just like everyone else, I've never seen this before today. And just like everyone else, I agree: don't beat yourself up. This is a Raleigh from the 70s, after all, and anything you did to it was an improvement

Hasn't shaken my faith - you can still work your magic on my project!

DD

You've got me thinking about salvaging this. At the least I'd have to face the top to be parallel with the bottom. What have I got to loose?

And, yeah, pipe in the head tube is pretty common. I've pressed a lot of headsets on seamed head tubes before with no issues.

Too bad that happened at the end of the project.

Who knows what stresses these >40 YO frames have been through from mfg through some very hard service lives?
A curb-jump in '80 that wasn't quite enough force to obviously distort the tubes, ten thousand potholes, one last pass with the ream and a turn of the press....."Ah, crap".

-Bandera

I had one of those bulges form on a brand new Peugeot PSV I bought back in 1984. I first noticed it shortly after I got the bike home and it was very very slight, on the front of the head tube, about 3/4's of the way up, under the top head lug. The headset on the bike started to get quite loose after just maybe a few weeks of initial riding. Adjusted the headset, but it started loosening again at an alarming rate and that's when I noticed that the bulge grew quite a bit, from a slight ripple on the surface to a definite bulge going almost half around the head tube.
.Took it to the Peugeot dealer I bought it from and they exchange the whole bike under warranty, no questions asked as they never seen such on their bikes before and could not explain what was happening. I still own the PSV they gave me for exchange and it never developed the same problem.
Thinking back about the whole incident with the bike, all I can think of is the head tube which is Supervitus 980, which is supposed to be heat treated, was defective and was too ductile.....but to bulge out like that so easily, the bike never going through any sort of crash or stress trauma, it must have been really bad.
Maybe your bike has the very same type of head tube defect that cause it's head tube to easily bulge out with just am headset install?

That bulge looks like it's been powder coated over. Possible that the coater did something to bend the top lug before shooting it?

You do enough brazing that I would think you could replace the HT with some good chromoly.

A bit more work if the TT is also shot.

Nope. Not a chance.

FWIW, I sent this one to Groody Brothers. Mark Rainey there did a great job with it. It came back to me well packaged and straight. I did all the torchwork. I even had it media blasted locally before brazing just to see what it looked like under the original paint. Typical semi-sloppy braze job, nothing exceptionally good or bad compared to many others I'd worked on.

Powder coat is pretty flexible. It just bent with the tube.

I was hesitant to mention the powder coater, as I didn't want them to be tainted with this.

Even if I did, I'd have to spend the money to powder coat it all over again, with decals, clear coat...not worth it.

I second the tidy up the headset angles and ride it advice, You've got way too much time in that pretty project for wall art. When it's out in the sun, you and 25 or so of your closest electronic friends will be the only ones that know.