Anyone offer a good description of servicing aheadset?

ok, take off the top cap from the stem, take off the stem, take out the spacers and bearings one by one, making a careful not of order and orientation.

Drop the forks out, to get to lower bearings.

Clean+degrease everything, regrease bearings if cup and cone style. You may need to replace the ball bearings/cage assemblies if balls are corroded.

If it's a cartridge bearing unit, either pop out seals (without damaging them), degrease and regrease, then replace seals, or replace whole bearing units what bearings you need will depend on headset. Try taking old ones to a bearing supplier and see if they can supply replacements.

Reassemble everything as it came apart, leave stem unclamped, do up topcap until headset is tight enough for there to be no play (test by putting front brake on and trying to rock backwards and forwards) but not so tight that steering stiffens. Once you're happy with that, tighten the stem clamp.

Check for play in the headset after first ride in case something settles.

That's all i can think of off hand, i'm sure others can chip in with other things i've forgotten.

The obligatory Park Tools link:

http://www.parktool.com/repair_help/FAQhdset.shtml

that link is pretty good on headset installation + removal and ajustment, but hasn't got much on actual servicing.

don't forget the usual gotcha.. bearings pinging across the workshop floor never to be seen again... use a tray to catch the little bastards as you twat them out with yr screwdriver

ah yeah, and don't do it in a kitchen, or the garage if you have an extra freezer in there. Either way, you would definately loose the bearings if even if you tried to use a tray, due to the affinity for small metal parts to the space under fridges and freezers, known as 'fridge suck' as discussed in a long thread a while back.

;-)

Any suggestions where to get caged headset bearings ?

WTB momentum c headset.

I know I could go to loose bearings but I am a fat handed twat.

with no patience.