breaking hs bearings - new frame?

[JFax]

Hey guys.

Ive been on my frame now for like 4 years. In the last couple of years Ive gone through about 4 lower headset bearings. Whenever I remove the fork it just falls out in pieces.

Ive used different bearings each time and Im riding a Mankind justice frame with a primo strand v2 fork, I also tried other forks and still the same issue. I just install the headset directly on the fork race, no extra races or shims. I tighten with my fingers and give a last little turn with the allen key to secure the fork. It always spin freely with now play.

Can my frame be to blame? I cant see anything wrong, but I guess a deformation can be hard to see. What do you guys think? Can I fix this or time for a new frame?

[badlight]

This is just something integrated bearings do, there isn't exactly a whole lot holding em together. Just put them back together with grease unless you really feel the need to keep buying new ones.

[JFax]

What I mean by breaking is that the races comes out in several pieces, like metal flakes, not that the races disconnect from eachother. The bearing balls are intact, but the races are just a hot mess.

[badlight]

In that case, there very well could be some paint or weirdness from being welded affecting the races, causing them to break. Try and find a shop with an integrated headset reamer? Both races or just the upper or lower?

[barcodebilly]

You using the right degree races? I had a colony headser that was the weird off number instead of the normal one. Can't be arsed to look up the actual numbers but iirc its like 36 and 45? Dunno

[master]

In that case, there very well could be some paint or weirdness from being welded affecting the races, causing them to break. Try and find a shop with an integrated headset reamer? Both races or just the upper or lower?

This, a reamer would put it into spec...

You using the right degree races? I had a colony headser that was the weird off number instead of the normal one. Can't be arsed to look up the actual numbers but iirc its like 36 and 45? Dunno

Or this. Most bikes are Campy 45/45 spec but you could have an oddball.

[metalbmxer]

Maybe it's simply over tightened or just loose

[ediotism]

maybe a few clarifying questions can help:

1. these metal shavings that you see, its from the races because the whole thing has fallen into pieces whenever you take out the fork? the few times that it happened, i assume they looked like they failed in a similar fashion? this itself points to the races not sitting flush on a perfectly flat surface. if the surface that the race sits on is "wobbly" or crooked, all the pressure from riding puts stress on to it. maybe you can check the fork/lower race of headtube surfaces? using a ream and face tool on them may solve the issue.

2. you said the ball bearings are fine, do they have any flat spots on them? look very closely. using bearing balls that're of a lesser quality (less hard, less round etc) shouldn't really destroy your bearing races, but is worth a check over.

3. i'd assume you use the usual bearings where there're about 8 balls held in equal spacing with a crown? is it distorted in any way when you take it out? damaged? it may shred some light on the issue. personally i've never had a headset as smooth as a FSA unsealed pig with looseball bearings (i.e. without crown, just more balls) that Sheepdog taught us to do wayyyyyy back in the day. not even a properly installed chris king non-integrated/internal.

4. a headset that's too loose usually results in flaring, not race damage. as for too tight, race damage as you described is possible but very unlikely, since it'd have to be noticiably over-tightened for that to happen. just for information sharing tho, sometimes a headset becomes tighter/looser than how you set it with the compression bolt when you tighten the stem's pinch bolts, due to minor distortion in things. you can test how self-tightening your particular set up is by only tightening the compression bolt to where the wobble is just gone, then check the resistance in turning the bars. you then tighten the stem pinch bolts and compare how much the resistance has increased. this may give you a better idea of how much preloading you need in your compression bolt.

5. how often does this happen? if the race is shattered everytime you loosen the forks, how often do you do that? every 2 weeks? 2 months?

[JFax]

Ok. So an update;
Im fairly sure its my lower ones that keep breaking, cant remember, its been like 2 years and 4 headsets. I cant tell when it is happening because the bar still turns nicely and works fine. So the few times I disassemble my bike is when I can see that it actually is in pieces. Not sure if something can happen, but as I ride bowl and vert I would prefer to be able to fully trust my bike.

I will contact Mankind and ask for the specs of the frame. I have tried the better shops in my area for reaming but they dont have the tooling for BMX as this is more or less never done on BMX apperently.

Another possibility is to get a high quality headset. Anyone have any info/experience of the Kink Ti one?

[Sasha]

they dont have the tooling for BMX

They should do. It isn't BMX specific.

[Sasha]

http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/headset-standards#campy

^Most commonly used on BMX frames, loads of big bike frames too.

http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/headset-standards#is

^Got used on a couple BMX frames. You shop should have a tool to measure what headset your frame takes. It looks like this

[JFax]

Alright thanks.

I called them up and they said they had a reamer but not for BMX integral headsets. The guy was an old BMXer so I hoped he knew what he was talking about.

Anyway, will head to the neighbouring bigger city instead to see if someone can sort it out for me.

[blueee]

spoke too soon