So the headset on the Erba keeps loosening up just enough to get that slightly-loose-headset-sound, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. Am I just not tightening down on the top nut enough once I get the pre-load right? Is there some headset secret I somehow missed out on? Like the BB one about putting a skewer through the spindle to hold the BB tool in place (nearly killed someone when I figured that out)... Hatta Swan for what it's worth.

I dont care what anyone says...this is the worst thing about threaded headsets. Just tighten the **** out of it, dont worry about being able to turn the bars. Backwards circles are dumb any who.

that isnt very wise. if you tighten it too much, your cups and race will start pitting, and your headset will feel like crap, not to mention it'll be worthless. same thing if its too loose.

if you can't get it right, take it to the lbs

Ummm....

Loosen off your stem bolts, make sure they are loose, now tighten the top cap and you should be able to tell when the play in the headset is gone without tightening the stem back up.

Straighten the bars and tighten the stem back up.

If your headset is properly adjusted it shouldn't really come loose, unless the stem slips on the steerer tube a bit, or sometimes if your headset was recently installed it may be that the cups still were not compleatly seated flush in the head tube.

Don't tighten the top cap if the stem bolts are not loosened off, this will just pull out the starfangled nut from your steerer tube.

Usually you can feel a loose headset rather than hearing it, sometimes they can make sounds if they are over tightened.

As for the skewer through the bb spindle, i dunno what kind of bb you have, but I could only see that working with an octalink, ISIS, or any splined bb where the whole axle is hollow.

With square taper, you could just use the nut and a big washer over the removal tool, or if it's a female axle use a bolt with the same thread at the bb axle.

As concernicus said bring it to the lbs, if you can't figure it out, should be an easy fix.

Oh jeez are you talking about threaded or threadless?

The way you are decribing it with preload and all sounds like it is a threadless headset.

If it is threaded then here is what you do.

There should be two nuts that thread onto the steerer tube. The one on the bottom being the one that actually presses against the bearing, and the top most one being the lock nut.

Loosen them both off.

Tighten the bottom nut to preaload and tighten up the headset.

Now thread the locking nut up against the bottom one, hopefully you ared using the correct tools.

Using two flat wrenches, one on each nut, hold the bottom nut in place while tightening the top nut against it.

Make sure the the headset has no play and moves freely.

You may need to loosen it off and try it a few times before you get it right, maybe try overtightening the bottom nut and then loosening it into the top nut.

It's just like adjusting cones on a wheel.

Loose bearings or caged?

i've faced this problem. faced... get it?

two reasons why mine have loosened:
spacers that don't sit right with eachother

facing. if your headtube isn't faced perfectly square and flat, your races can't sit in there right, and you'll always be flopping around.

another possible reason could be a non-square fork crown/race/steerer connection.

I've seen chronic HS problems being caused by a crack in the steerer. You may want to check it - especially if the threaded portion of your fork is long enough to go past where your stem grips the inside (if that makes sense).

your no fun...

If threaded (Hatta swans are threaded right?) check you have a gap between the top of the lock nut and the fork column.


From https://www.parktool.com/repair/readhowto.asp?id=127

If theres no gap, you'll never be able to get the headset adjusted and it will always feel wonky.

You beat me to it, and with a picture no less. What causes this problem is a longish steerer tube which is not allowing the headset's lock nut to put the final amount of pressure on the headset as a whole. To combat this, you can either cut the steerer tube if you're fortunate enough to have access to a threaded steerer cutting guide OR add one or two very thin spacers with that little tab on the inside so they seat nicely on the steerer tube. I've had this problem on a few of my headsets and have approached it the same way.

A cracked steerer tube or a head tube that isn't faced can also cause this problem, but I'd try the facer solution first because it will require the least amount of disassembly...