Play in headset

booldawg

Rode my new build back home last night and all seemed well. This morning I noticed a fair amount of play in the steerer tube/headset. With the front brake on it rocks backwards and forwards quite badly.

Checked the bottom crown race and it appears to be seated correctly. Also tightened up the top cap (with stem bolts loosened!) and still not rectifying the problem.

I have 4 cm of spacers just below the stem - is this too much and causing the problem? When I bought the forks (Exotic Carbon) I messed up and got the forks adjusted for 80mm travel rather than 100mm (which the geometry of the frame is set up for) hence the 4cm of spacers as the bars would be a bit low.

Have checked everything and its all 1"1/8th. Any ideas?

balmybaldwin

A friend recently had a similar problem, and we found that tightening one of the stem bolts (not the one that goes into the star washer) everything seemed fine, but when we tightened the second bolt, it all loosened up again... drove us nuts, in the end we swapped the stem for another, and that fixed the problem. On inspection there was no sign of wear or damage to the original stem - it just didn't clamp correctly

cooldad

When doing up stem bolts (or anything else with more than one, like wheelnuts), do them all up bit by bit, not one tight and then the next or you'll always have problems, assuming you don't strip them in the process.
To the op, spacers shouldn't make a difference.
Is there a enough of a gap between the top of the stem/topcap and steerer tube?
Brake rotor/caliper loose?
Did you remember to fit the compression cone?

You'll always have a little bit of movement

balmybaldwin

Cool dad, trust me, we tried every possible way of tightening the bolts, simultaneously, bit by bit etc over a period of about 3 hours. I've been building bikes for 20 years, and never come across this. The thing that proved it was the stem was swapping the stem on my bike with the stem on his bike - at which point the problem moved to my bike.

Measuring the height of the clamp on the stem proved further where the problem lay, at the stem clamps became tight, the bolt side of the clampy bit reduced in height by 0.9mm as measured using digital calipers which is where the looseness came from.

Not that this is necessarily the problem for the OP, but just another possibility to look at if all else fails (I assumed the OP had checked the assembly was correct)

cooldad

OK but for other's reference. I often see people tighten one bolt really tight, then start on the next.

booldawg

Have managed to sort it. The steerer tube was cut flush with the top of the stem. This meant when I tightened the top cap it was tighetening against the steerer tube rather than the stem. Put a 3mm spacer to rise the stem slightly and now its sorted! Thanks all for you input!

cooldad

cooldad wrote:

Is there a enough of a gap between the top of the stem/topcap and steerer tube?

No problem.

booldawg

haha, lol, sorry CD. You had it answered all the time! didnt disgest your post properly :oops:

cooldad

No problem.