I've been hearing annoying clicking sounds every time I put weight on my bars/stem. My mechanic told me I should take my headset off and lube the **** out of it, as the clicking is coming from metal on metal. Before doing so, I noticed this loose ring around the bottom of my headset (closest to top tube) I took it apart, lubed the **** out of it and put it back together. This ring is still loose. Is this normal, or not?

Thanks

It's hard to tell from those pictures but if it's the plastic/rubber piece that just covers the upper bearing, then yes it's normal for it to be able to spin, but it shouldn't really be able to be wiggled up and down. BTW, that headset looks like the one I just had to replace in my Kilo WT after about 1600 miles. It was indexed so bad it was geting dangerous...especially riding with hands. Replaced it with a Cane Creek S3.

Roland

looks normal

That Cane Creek is a cheapo. I started having a bunch of trouble with mine (living at the beach + cheap unsealed heatset = bad idea) and recently decided to replace it with something sealed.

If it's actually loose and you can't tighten it down all the way, you may need an additional small spacer.

I've had the same headset for two years, way over 1600 miles, and have had no problems. You probably didnt have it adjusted well/greased


To OP, the clicking could just be from the bar and stem. Grease the the clamping area and it might go away.

Nope, taken apart, greased and adjusted when I got the bike. It just died a rapid death. Add low quality to my not so light weight and blasting down washboarded gravel roads on a regular basis and it just couldn't take the abuse.

the headset is fine. tighten top bolt first.

I'm not light weight either and roads here aren't exactly ideal all the time. Indexing is caused by metal-to-metal contact of the bearings and races and can be helped by making sure there is grease, at least according to Sheldon Brown and the article he cites.

You might try asking in the Mechanics forum. Although there are some mechanics here, there are a lot more over there: https://www.bikeforums.net/forumdispl...ycle-Mechanics

Nah...those dudes are posers.