go home today and pack your steering head bearings with grease. Holy crap. I don't think i have a cuss word to describe how i feel about pressing on new bearings. Bearings that siezed after only 6000 miles. it looks like water got in and pooled in the bottom of the steering head.
I have one bearing cup in...but it ruined my homemade press...I'm off to lowes to remake it with twice as beefy everything. My first attempt cupped a 1 inch stack of fender washers...I've also managed to get one of the bearings about half way on to the steering stem...i'm out of propane and I bent a 12 inch bar clamp. At least the steering stem I can take to a machine shop and have finished right. Maybe i can get some half inch thick steel and some long 1/2 inch bolts and make a press out of my car jack...holy crap...On the other hand..this day has been way better than sitting at my desk at work :thumb:
Wow. I did mine, and it was pretty straight forward. I didn't even use a press at all, just some old bearing races, a drift, and a hammer.
well, more learning from my unkle Sam.
take the bearing and place on a cookie sheet(wrapped in tin foil) what ever....
heat in oven for about 15-30 min at about 150-200
and the lower inner race should slide right on
use gloves
hot
yadda yadda.....
hmmm...an oven is a good idea. I had a propane torch lying around and I tried that. It didn't expand enough though. I ended up with a 1" diameter galvanized pipe about 8 inches long, capped. It fit just perfectly onto the inner solid part of the bearing, so that i could nudge it ever so gently into place with the largest ball peen hammer i could find. :P
The bearing cups, I kept in the freezer over night and tried to press into the head with a 3/8" threaded rod, some fender washers and a couple of 16 gauge plates of steel. Kind of like the device in the chlymer manual. it yielded before the bearing cups did. I mean, all of the fender washers were cupped, the rod was bend and the nuts were all but welded to the threads. So i went back to lowes and got 9" long 5/8 diameter mother of a bolt and matching nut. I got a couple of hardened washers as well. That got the bearing cups mostly in...a little "gentle" adjustment with the afore mentioned hammer straightened everything up. I was careful to use the washers and sheet metal to spread the force of the hammer over the whole cup.
It's all back together now and nice and smooth. Tomorrow I'll get the wires and cables mounted on the right side of the forks..grrrr...and take it out for a test ride.
Despite all of the trouble, i still did it all, f'ed up tools, parts and everything, for less than suzuki wanted for the bearings alone. Victory..
Next time...oven..and drifts...check. Thanks.
kewl trick is to use the old outer races as a sacrificial ....drift
install new race, take old race and turn it over and wack on the old race to install the new race, therefore not destroying the new race with a hammer