I am 99% sure I put everything back the way it was but the forks turn one way but notht eh other.....it looks like its screwing itself on and off?

Does that make sense to anyone?

What have I done wrong?

Maybe caged bearings were put in upside down. Rule of thumb, usually, open side of bearing cage ( C< ) goes toward cone and closed side ( >C ) goes toward bearing cup.

Photos, please.

+1 Without pictures, its anyone's guess. Upside down on the bearings (if you did not use loose balls). I've seen multiple postings with pics where people left out spacers, had parts upside down, etc.

As a general rule, I carefully remove headsets, keeping each piece in the same orientation, and zip tie them together for storage.

Did you use two wrenches to tighten the top nut while holding the other one in place? If you did not that could cause the headset to be tightening on itself.

-Jake

Original set up....





As of today.....



Build so far.....

If the reversed bearing theory doesn't pan out, it could be that you don't have the cups seated properly, either because you didn't press them in fully or maybe there's some PC buildup on the edges of the headtube.

Check the cups to be sure you have them pressed fully and evenly. Inspect very carefully in good light and try to slip a sheet of paper between the cups and HT. (You shouldn't be able to.) If you happen to have a caliper long enough to span the cups, check several points around their perimeters to see if the spacing is consistent.

[edit] If you do find that there's PC buildup on the HT edge, I'd remove the cups and, with an X-acto or something like it, carefully (working from outside-in to avoid chipping) take it down to bare metal. You can do a final cleanup with a whetstone. If you're really serious you could take it to a reputable shop to have the HT surfaces dressed, but personally I wouldn't bother with that.

upper bearings are in upside down - you can see the upper race. It should be covered by the adjustable cup.

After taking it all apart again I realized that the bearings where two different sizes. I really had to look at them side by side...turns out I had them switched...the one in the fork crown needed to go in the head tube and vice versa. Tightened the HT cup down (the part in the picture with the inscription on it)...moved the fork right and left....no problem...absolutely no play in it when lifting it up and down and back and forth. I then placed the space (lock nut?) on and tightened it down tight on the bearing cup. moved the forks...great! Now I screwed on the last bit, the top nut? I don't know what you call it. Tightened it down tight on the spacer, moved the forks and nothin' very hard to move the forks...loosed it up and everything was ok...tighten it down,,,not so good.

Can one over tighten the head set? I think I have.

Looks like a trip to the LBS....

You need a headset wrench to hold the bearing adjustment cup still as you tighten down the locknut - sounds like you weren't doing this and the locknut was also tightening the adjustment cup.

Yes you can overtighten the headset. The top nut is called the Lock Nut.

Adjust the upper adjustable headset cup until the fork turns freely but you feel no play when you shake it up and down. When you've got that on, put your spacers on, then thread on the Lock Nut. When it gets down to time to tighten the locknut down use two wrenches as has been described above. One on the headset cup to hold it in place and the other on the Lock Nut to crank it down.

If you get it all cranked down and its too tight, loosen the locknut, then loosen the adjustable cup just a little and try tightening the lock nut again. Sometimes the added pressure of the lock nut drives the adjustable cup down a little too far so you need to compensate for it by having the cup a little too loose before you crank the lock nut down. It can take some trial and error to get it right.

Your only mistake was to not hold the cup still with a wrench as you tightened the top nut down on the spacer. The spacer is supposed to stop the top cup from tightening when you snug down the top nut, but often times if you don't hold it with a headset wrench they will tighten together and bind up the fork.

All you have to do is snug down the top cup till there is no play and the fork rotates smoothly. Then, hold the top cup still with a wrench while you tighten and jam the topnut down. You're done.

+1

This article on How to Rebuild a Vintage Headset might be helpful.

+1 to what's been said. It is like Adjustable BBs, Cones on non-sealed hubs and so on.