Headset Dead Spot

Fredster said:

I had a new Campag headset fitted to my bike about 6 months ago and it's already developed a dead
spot, causeing the wheel to point straight ahead when I lift it up. I've tried twiddling the
bearings around and regreasing it but it still seems just as bad. Therefore, the question is, how
do I get rid of the dead spot?

Change the bearing surfaces, you have at some time smashed the bearing surfaces into the bearings
hard enough to cause a dent in the surface, this dent is what you are feeling as a "dead spot" and
probably results in you "thruppeny biting" around corners.

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Fredster <[email hidden]> wrote:

: I had a new Campag headset fitted to my bike about 6 months ago and it's already developed a dead
: spot, causeing the wheel to point straight ahead when I lift it up. I've tried twiddling the
: bearings around and regreasing it but it still seems just as bad. Therefore, the question is, how
: do I get rid of the dead spot?

Buy new headset. If you got a shop to fit it and haven't altered it yourself since then they should
pay for it since the headset has be set up too tight.

Arthur

Fredster said:

I had a new Campag headset fitted to my bike about 6 months ago and it's already developed a dead
spot, causeing the wheel to point straight ahead when I lift it up. I've tried twiddling the
bearings around and regreasing it but it still seems just as bad. Therefore, the question is, how
do I get rid of the dead spot?

There are things you can try to reduce the symptoms or slow the deterioration but really the cups
(or whole headset) need replacing. It would be a good idea to get the head tube faced first to make
sure the headset can be adjusted perfectly.

In the meantime you could try replacing the caged balls with loose balls (will require
aditional balls) - bottom race is likely to be more worn than top. Turning the affected cup
around to a different orientation is also supposed to help (cup remover & press required) - as
is polishing the cups.

~PB

"Fredster" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hi,

I had a new Campag headset fitted to my bike about 6 months ago and it's already developed a dead
spot, causeing the wheel to point straight ahead when I lift it up. I've tried twiddling the
bearings around and

regreasing

Quoted message said:

it but it still seems just as bad. Therefore, the question is, how do I

get

Quoted message said:

rid of the dead spot?

As others have said, if the dead spot is due to bearing damage it will need to be replaced. But it
might be worth just making sure it isn't a combination of a certain degree of rigidity in the
cable/gear housings and their routing which is tending to push the bars back to the centre. I had
started to think mine had a deadspot when I had it up on the stand - the feeling was distinctly as
if there was a point that they wanted to stay in and not turn out of, but it was only that.

Rich

marc said:

Fredster said:

I had a new Campag headset fitted to my bike about 6 months ago and it's already developed a
dead spot, causeing the wheel to point straight ahead when I lift it up. I've tried twiddling
the bearings around and regreasing it but it still seems just as bad. Therefore, the question
is, how do I get rid of the dead spot?

Change the bearing surfaces, you have at some time smashed the bearing surfaces into the bearings
hard enough to cause a dent in the surface, this dent is what you are feeling as a "dead spot" and
probably results in you "thruppeny biting" around corners.

Contrary to popular belief, headset 'indexing' is not caused by the ball bearings smashing into
the bearing surface, it is caused by high frequency vibrations,that eventually cause the dents.
Get a hammer and try to hit a ball bearing into a head race - you wont mark it. Jobst Brandt has
wriiten a good piece about this in the FAQ for the rec.bicycles.tech newsgroup. I'd say the OPs
problem was that the headset was tightened too much when it was first fitted.The only thing to do
is replace it. Alan.
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