UKC

I had a grand plan to upgrade my 2011-vintage Specialized TriCross to a disc front brake. I've sourced a fork with disc mounts with the same size steering tube as the OE fork (http://bit.ly/25xKLTk) plus a disc wheel, mechanical disc brake, brake mount adaptor and brake rotor. I already had a spare star nut, new brake cables and outers. Based on my previous experience of upgrading the fork on my MTB, I thought I was all set to go...

Unfortunately my optimism turned out to be mistaken. When I swapped the fork on my MTB, the headset bearings were a straight swap between the old fork and the new. I can't remember exactly what I did but it was very straightforward. When I dismantled the front end on the TriCross, however, I found that things were rather more complicated. I was under the impression from the bike's spec sheet (http://bit.ly/1THO3YZ) that they were integrated: Specialized describe the headset as "1-1/8" sealed Cr-Mo bearings integrated w/ headset". Turns out it has caged bearings, with cups for the top and bottom bearing fitted in to the head tube. There is a crown race on the fork which does not appear to be removable.

To compound the problem, I managed to bend one of the bearing cages and lose some of the balls so the bike is currently unridable - I can't even put the front end back the way it was

I've done some reading around and it appears that it is possible (and maybe even recommended) to replace the OE bearings with true integrated bearings. Apparently it is relatively easy to remove the cups from the head tube using a drift. I can do some more research on the bearing sizes I'd need to procure, but I'm a little unsure about a few details, eg would I need to fit a crown race to the new fork, or is that built in to an integrated bearing?

Push comes to shove I'll hand the frame & fork to an LBS and ask them to sort the bearings. The rest of the fitting I'm confident that I can do myself. But it would be nice to be able to complete the whole job under my own steam.

Any suggestions/sage advice would be very welcome!

In reply to Martin W:


It's fiddly, but you can get new balls and put them in loose, i.e. without a cage (takes a couple more balls than in the original cage) it's one way to get a bit of extra life out of a headset that has developed a 'notch' in the straight ahead position, put the loose balls in the bottom race and for convenience you could use the cage in the top.

A new headset should come with a new crown race. You'll need to remove the old one (careful prising with screwdriver or a dedicated crown race removal tool might be a better option).

Tools required for new fork and headset:
Bearing removal tool / drift tool
Crown race removal tool
Crown race seating tool
Bearing press for new headset bearings

How many forks do you intend to change? Consider if it is worth buying / making all these tools for a single job. I'm going to take mine to the local bike mechanic as I don't want to mess up my new fork.

In reply to Martin W:

Try using chopsticks?

In reply to Martin W:

Unless it is obviously straightforward, get it down to the LBS. The last one I did, the race for the bearings wouldn't seat properly on the new fork. It had to go off to the LBS to have a little bit of the fork shaved off (too much metal can be removed, but you can't put it back again). This is really where the LBS are worth their weight in gold, and where all the expensive tools pay their way.

Bearing changes on a Fulcrum wheel? Not immediately obvious (tool or expertise missing)? - ergo off to the bike shop it shall go.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:


I'll set 'em up, you knock em down

In reply to Martin W: Thanks for all the suggestions to date. I think it is going to be a job for the LBS, assuming they can fit it in reasonably soon. The main thing I don't want to do is to order up the bearings and then find, when I get them, that I need yet another component in order to finish the job. But if the LBS is booked up for weeks ahead then it'd be a six and two threes...

In reply to Martin W:

If it's just loose bearings you've lost just buy a bag of bearings, they cost pennies. As far as the cage, you can bin it, spread a good (3mm thick) layer of grease in the cup and stick the bearings in one by one until full then remove one.

Getting headset cups and cones off used to be easy until all the new "standards" arrived which are totally not standard and new materials like carbon fibre. If it's a carbon frame, fork or stearer tube just take it to a shop with a good press. If not you can get away with using drifts, flat head screw drivers and old sockets but if it's an internal/integrated design where the entire cup section is deep in the frame without anything standing proud you'll struggle to get it back in straight and will be back down the shop.

In reply to Martin W: Hmm. The LBS understood the problem when I described it to them and seemed confident that they could sort it, but they are booked up for two weeks

I've managed to work out how the OE headset fits together (I thought I'd carefully laid everything out in order or dismantling, but the first few attempts to re-assemble it left obvious gaps which were clearly wrong). Assuming I can get hold of some 1/8" bearing balls today I can at least have the thing back together by the weekend.

It also looks like I could use the OE headset with the new fork except that the OE fork seems to have a spacer of some kind for the crown race to sit on, which seems to be non-removable (I though that was the crown race to begin with, but I now understand the assembly a lot better after some protracted fiddling about with all the bits). If I offer up the new fork without that spacer, the fork crown fouls the bottom of the head tube before the crown race snugs up to the caged bearings. The spacer does not seem to be a readily available part on its own.

I'm beginning to think that the best way to achieve what I ultimately want will be to buy a whole new IS headset. Everything I've read online from people with the same or similar bikes leads me to believe that this would be a doddle to fit once I've managed to remove the non-standard bearing cups which Specialized have inserted within the otherwise IS-spec head tube. Worryingly, though, one or two folks have reported being unable to drift the cups out of the head tube. That could mean ~£30 spent on a new headset which I cannot then fit - and still no way to fit the ~£250-worth of new fork, wheel & brake to the bike.

Maybe I'll just have to spend a few quid on some new bearing balls to replace the ones I've lost, and wait for the LBS to get a space in their schedule...

In reply to Martin W:

"It also looks like I could use the OE headset with the new fork except that the OE fork seems to have a spacer of some kind for the crown race to sit on"
Most forks have a wider section at the bottom of the steerer tube (either tapered or stepped out) to fit the bearing race, what does your new for look like? the photos on the website you linked to do seem to show a gently tapered section but this may not be as apparent as it is on the OEM fork.

Any bike shop (probably excluding Halfords) should have a pack of bearings, best double check the size though, 1/8th seems a bit small.

In reply to Martin W:

Think you are in Edinburgh? Bicycle works seem to always have space in their schedule.

In reply to Mike-W-99:

plus if you fancy having a crack at it yourself but with the correct tools, then try the bike station "do it yourself" sessions

I'm fairly sure they have headset tools but if you called them they'll be able to confirm.

http://www.thebikestation.org.uk/edinburgh/ see the "fix your own bike" sections

In reply to Martin W:

In situations like this, YouTube is sometimes really helpful.

In reply to gethin_allen:

Both forks have a wider section towards the crown which the crown race slips over. That's not what I was referring to. On the OE fork there is what looks like a thin metal shim with a slightly thicker plastic or rubber pad beneath it on the surface of the crown. This means that the crown race sits ~1mm above the actual top surface of the fork crown. (I think that the rubber/plastic bit is supposed to create a bit of a seal against mud/water ingress.) I can't see any way to get this assembly off the OE fork without damaging it. I could try fabricating something similar for the new fork using materials to hand...


The bearings in the cages are definitely 1/8", I measured them with a digital calliper.

In reply to Mike-W-99 & rallymania:

Thanks, I'll try calling the Bicycle Works tomorrow. If they're stowed out then I'll definitely consider the Bike Station.

In reply to Martin W:

Quick update: I eventually went for the option of a new headset. It was going cheap on Chain Reaction, from the same manufacturer as the one on the original fork but with IS sealed bearings.

I got the non-standard bearing cups out of the head tube using a drift tool knocked up from a bit of old steel tube with two longitudinal hacksaw cuts at ~90°, as per this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkY879pMafE. Worked like a charm!

I split the new crown race with a razor saw to make it easy to fit. Other headsets come with a split crown race anyway. Since the bearings are sealed all the crown 'race' does is provide a seat for the cassette - and the profile on the lower face of the bearing cassette pushes the crown race closed rather than spreading it open.

The one thing I did get the LBS to do was to fit the star nut, once I'd taken a deep breath and cut the steerer to length (after measuring and re-checking and re-re-checking multiple times!) I did try some of the bodges described online for fitting the star nut but the thing would not go in straight. The mechanic at the LBS had the right tool and did the job in about 30 seconds flat. Well worth the fiver, I thought.

After that, assembly & final adjustment was a doddle.

I now have a fully-functioning new fork, and a front disc brake. I've also learned a few things I didn't know before about forks and headsets, and future headset bearing replacement should be a straightforward cassette swap job. Hurrah!

In reply to Martin W:

Well done Martin, good fixing skills.

Assuming that the star nut has two sets of stars that engage with the tube, I would have expected that once the second set was engaged it would sit straight anyway. Or was getting to this stage the problem in the first place?