Removing steering head bearings

Technical V85tt
1

I’ve stripped off the front end off the bike to change the steering bearings which went ok. The top race were well greased but heavy brindelling suggesting they were maybe over tightened from the factory? The bottom race was rusty with heavy pitting on the bottom race, I’ve never used a pressure washer but the bike was nearly two years old when I bought it.

The main issue is the outer races in the frame are recessed so I can’t get anything behind them to get them out, Any ideas?

Thanks

P.S. mental note to regularly check and grease in the future

2

Sometimes the manufacturers put one or more cut aways in the metal support for the bearing - allows you to get a thin punch (a nail punch is excellent for this) on one side then the other. Drive it out dead straight - if it cockles it will jam

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3

Not in Italy apparently. There is s approximately a 5mm gap which is fine if you have the factory workshop kit. Fortunately somebody lent me a home made tool which had been made to remove the steering bearings on a BMW R60S, with some light modification with a file the jobs a good un!

I shared the photos of the bearings and races with a very experienced mechanical engineer and he reckons that the Brinelling indicates that they were overtightened from day 1. Unfortunately I’m not clever enough to upload the photos, too large I think?

I’ll be replacing the standard made in Vietnam bearings with some quality Japanese taper rollers and also taking some material out of the headstock so they’re a lot easier to do next time if there is a ever a next time.

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Keep at least one outer race. When you tap the new bearing in, as it gets level with the stem, switch to the old race edge-to-edge and use that as a punch to seat the new bearing race fully. I have a collection of outer races from various small block and big block Guzzis kept for just that purpose.

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As well as using old ones for the final seating I put the new outer races in the freezer overnight, it all helps.

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I used one similar to this on my V7 850 as I had exactly the same issue. I ignored the similar looking products that were half the price and actually bought a Laser one. Quality product, make sure you tension it up tight and a couple of solid whacks with a dead-blow hammer and out it popped. Make sure you wrap a rag or old towel around the headstock or the bearing will shoot out at a rate of knots and likely damage something!

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