Steer in the Right Direction

After a brief wait for materials - and special tools, I can begin the replacement of the steering head bearings.

I scored some very nice Japanese bearings on eBay for a really good price with quick delivery.

The long wait was for the special tools to remove the bearing outer races and the lower bearing from the triple clamp. There is a small, one-man company in Madison, Wisconsin (Northwood Airheads) that makes special tools for BMW bikes. They work quite well and cost a fraction of the price of some other tools that are not specific to the task.
This one-man shop does not have a slick web site with a shopping cart or online payment. I had to mail a check to him and wait for him to make the tools and ship them to my house.

I'm very used to the 'push button, get banana' world that we live in, so it was a frustrating wait to get my tools. It took so long that I decided to go on vacation while I waited. I took the family for 2 weeks in Greece. From Santorini to Paros then Athens. That was a nice treat!

When I got back, my tools were awaiting me in the mail. Yay!

First I pulled the bearing races from the motorcycle frame.

Then pulled the lower bearing from the triple tree.

Once the bearing was off, I put the lower triple tree in the freezer - more on this later... And don't tell Kim.



While things were cooling off in the freezer, I pressed the new races into the frame with a BFH (Big F-ing Hammer) and a block of wood.





Once that was done, the lower triple tree was good and cold - and smaller. Matter, especially metal shrinks as it cools. This made it much easier to press the new bearing (room temperature - and relatively larger) into place on the triple tree. That's applied physics, eh?

Once everything was in place, it was time to put it all back together.



There are a whole lot of pieces and parts. Reassembly of the front end will take a few days. In any case, the steering is nice and smooth now. Things are heading in the right direction.