Steering head maintinance, Disassembaly?

[Whoya]

Looking to grease the steering head on my bike and was wondering about the amount of disassembly. Should I leave the bottom Tripple clamp, forks, and front wheel all together and just remove the top tripple clamp and slide everything out the bottom? Or is it reccomended to disassemble the whole front end piece by piece??

Thanks for any info!!! Chris

[Way Fast Whitey]

i'm pretty sure the bearings your going to grease are on the stem(peice that connects the 2 clamps) so they will need to come off for you to be able to get in there and grease the bearings. have you read this www.thumperfaq.com

[Looneytunes]

The problem with trying to do it with the whole wheel/forks/lower triple clamp assembly in one piece is the assembly is heavy and hard to manage, and because of cable routing issues, you might not be able to pull the whole stem out to get the lower bearing off to clean and grease it properly. But, you can do it that way if the lower bearing isn't dirty and you just want to slap on some grease.

Personally, I'd recommend taking off the wheel and forks so you can do a better job.

[Whoya]

The stem should come out with the bottom trpple clamp? Correct?

I'll check the FAQ

[Whoya]

The problem with trying to do it with the whole wheel/forks/lower triple clamp assembly in one piece is the assembly is heavy and hard to manage, and because of cable routing issues, you might not be able to pull the whole stem out to get the lower bearing off to clean and grease it properly. But, you can do it that way if the lower bearing isn't dirty and you just want to slap on some grease.

Personally, I'd recommend taking off the wheel and forks so you can do a better job.

Thanks, I plan on disconnecting all the cables, (brake cable and odometer) and the handle bars etc.

I'll have to think about it some more.

[Looneytunes]

Thanks, I plan on disconnecting all the cables, (brake cable and odometer) and the handle bars etc.

Actually, you don't have to disconnect all the cables. Just remove the handlebars with the cables attached from the upper triple clamp and lay them forward and to one side (pay attention to and document the cable routing before you remove the bars, ie: what goes over or under what) because it may be hard to remember later. Use a bungie to secure them out of the way.

Then take off the wheel / forks and you'll have easy access to the steering head bearings and races.

[Whoya]

bump....Any other opinions?

[mrplow]

Easy stuff,

Take bars off, leave everything on them, bust top triple clamp nut off now, remove front wheel, front brake from fork and then remove forks, then pull apart triple clamps and clean and grease them up

[Yamabean]

bump....Any other opinions?

It's faster if u don't remove everything, but much harder to deal with.

i do this-

Remove: gas tank hose, bar pad, headlight, fender, brake line guides, shock guards, trip meter cable from wheel hub, pinch bolts (loosen), axle nut, axle, front wheel, f-brake master cylinder(remove bolts/bracket sit level on top of throttle cables and one wrap around with tape to secure and easy to remove with one hand), f-brake caliper(hold in one hand), f-brake cylinder(remove tape & hold with other hand & put level somewhere, shocks, handle bar(drop forward with everything else attached & bungie cord up out of way), top hex nut,

t-clamp, slined-nut, bottom clamp will now drop out, clean or replace races & bearings, well greased(i use Belray waterproof), installl, put all back together.

[Rudy]

Do what everone else said to do, but have a helper there to help manage things like the rear half of the bike when you remove the wheel and the forks and to hold the bars so cables don't kink.

The steering head bearings are the easiest bearings on the bike to keep greesed IMHO.

[Yak]

I've never done this before and I'm wondering how you line up the top and bottom clamp again. Are they splined or is there some sort of reference mark?