Steering Head Bearing

Alright, this will be a little pictorial in how I tore down the front end of my 1989 Vmax and removed and replaced the steering head bearing. Now, I didn't have any of the typical high and low speed wobbles that I could tell. This could be because my bearings were so bad that they kind of sat in a groove at dead center and didn't want to leave. Once I got the front wheel off of the ground i realized how bad it really was. I have the front wheel off already:



First remove the headlight lens and housing, just two screws on the sides, pull the bottom out and down:



Then pull out the headlight bucket after pulling all the wire disconnects and pushing the wires through the holes in the back of the bucket:



Unbolt the turn signal bracket and pull that off:



Inspect your wiring, you might find what I did need to make some repairs:



Here is what she looks like now from the front:



Next pull the controls off of the handlebars and drape them back over the "tank" and seat. The entire front brake system can be pulled off and set out of the way. Unbolt the handlebar bracket from the bottom and pull of the handlebars. You may have to do this first actually in order to wiggle all the controls off the ends of the bars. There is no need to actually remove the bars from the bracket. And you are left with this:


and this:



Ok, now its time to get deeper, crack loose that big nut on top of the upper triple tree and remove it and the washer beneath it. Always remember to keep track of the order you remove things, take pictures if you can. Sometime the most frustrating thing is trying to figure out where you are supposed to route that darn hydraulic line, or the throttle cable: Here is the nut off:



The upper triple tree will just lift off now exposing a little more of the stem, the alignment washer, another washer, and those two round, notched nuts. Unfortunately for me I got this far and realized someone before me decided that the alignment washer and other washer weren't necessary and took them off. Maybe that is why my steering head bearings were shot and my steering head was so notchy! Here it is:



Now how are we going to get those nuts off? Easy! With a channel locks! Not really though, getting off is easy, its getting them back on to the correct torque which is more demanding of special tooling. You can either plan ahead and buy the tool from Yamaha for who knows how much money, or you can do like I did. Go out and buy a cheap deepwell socket with an exterior diameter of 1-9/16", and a inside depth clearance of 2". (I got mine at atwoods for $5) Then set it on top of those nuts, and mark it with a sharpie like so:



I then bolted it to a short piece of unistrut that I had sitting around because I don't have a vice to clamp it in:



Now I could stand on the unistrut and grind away to my hearts content. BTW, I didn't have an angle grinder so while at Autozone I grabbed this little 4" dude. Pretty tough little grinder, came with a wheel and extra brushes to rebuild it! All for the Milwaukee price of $9.99 plus tax. Not bad, so I made the tool for $15 and got an angle grinder out of it, not bad. Oh, and not a word about the steel toes, I've got safety glasses on.



Here she is, about to pull off those two top nuts. Be sure to support the bottom when you get the last nut as it may fall out:



This is what will drop out the bottom:



And this is what you will see on top (well, hopefully not this bad):



As you can see the bearings come out easy but the races stay in there nicely. For the top race, i sprayed some PB Blaster on it and let that soak in. Then I pounded it out with a punch from the bottom, working my way around the race in a circular manner until it came free. Not too bad I thought. Check my bearings and races, don't let yours get this far. Disclaimer: bike is new to me!



The bottom race is a different story. It refused to come out using the punch method. So, I decided go ahead with the Dremel. Now, I read where someone used a diamond cutting wheel. I was going to run to Lowes and get some when I figured I would try the little grinding wheels that I had. Worked pretty good:




Once I had ground it down far enough I could pry on it with a screwdriver and it broke and dropped out. More frustrating however, was the inner race stuffed onto the stem. The first idea I had was to heat up the stem and bearing with my heat gun and then dip the stem into ice water so that the contraction would loosen it up:


As you can see I had already managed to rip off the rollers and the outer band of the bearing. The method above didn't actually work, so I just took to pounding on it with a punch and hammer and eventually it did work itself free and I got it off.

Everything went back on in the reverse order. I didn't have a bearing installation tool to use for putting the bearing back in, which is almost as big as a pain. I don't know what the best method is but I cleaned up the bearing recesses, greased them lightly, then pressed in new bearing races using a block of wood and light hammer blows in a circular pattern to make sure it was going in straight. Once I got the races installed, I installed the bearing on the stem by tapping it down slowing and gently. Everything seated nicely when I did the 36lb torque on the notched nuts. When I backed them back off to 2lbs it was silky smooth and nice and light.

Very good write up, Dave! Nice and detailed.

Good stuff

Mike

Thanks Mike, and please let me know if I have recommended or advocated any methods or practices which are inherently wrong or unsafe! This is meant as a tool so please, help me fine tune it if necessary.

Thanks.

bikedave99 said:

Thanks Mike, and please let me know if I have recommended or advocated any methods or practices which are inherently wrong or unsafe! This is meant as a tool so please, help me fine tune it if necessary.

Thanks.

Click to expand...

Great Post!!!! I'm about to do this soon myself. The only thing I saw that was remotly unsafe was wearing sandles while using the grinder... but that is somehting I would do, so no worries! unk:

Jeff

Good right up. I just did this and all used was a flat head screw driver and and hammer to loosen and tighten the the head nuts. I actually just cleaned and re greased the original bearings. They were in good shape. It was that damned bottom race that scared me away form changing them out.

I tried to cut/grind out the bottom outer race as you suggested, but it just wouldn't work for me and I started marring up the neck. I eventually found a novel approach on another thread. For the bottom outer race, I simply dremel'd out a "dannymax" notch and it became SO simple to punch out--check out my "Steering Bearing Maintenance" album (http://www.vmaxforum.net/album.php?albumid=553) and dannymax's original post (http://www.vmaxforum.net/showpost.php?p=157563&postcount=9). I didn't need to this for the upper outer race 'cause there was just enough of a race lip sticking out that I could punch it out OK. For the bottom bearing, I cut the cage apart and loosed the rollers. After that I kind of followed your lead and dremel'd a slot into the inner race, drove a chisel into the slot enough times to split the race off of the stem and then just punched the race down the stem.

Glad to hear of your success Ninjaneer! I did not find that tip from dannymax when I was doing mine but that is an excellent idea.... next time.... That is the beauty of the forums, all of our experiences and mistakes combined! The only sure thing is that it is never as easy as the FSM makes it out to be. Feel free to drop some of your pictures into this thread as it may help the next guy out.

For you maxers intimidated by the bottom outer race, don't sweat it. It becomes very simple once you grind out a "dannymax" notch. You can prolly do the same for the upper outer.

bikedave99 said:

Now how are we going to get those nuts off? Easy! With a channel locks! Not really though, getting off is easy, its getting them back on to the correct torque which is more demanding of special tooling. You can either plan ahead and buy the tool from Yamaha for who knows how much money, or you can do like I did. Go out and buy a cheap deepwell socket with an exterior diameter of 1-9/16", and a inside depth clearance of 2". (I got mine at atwoods for $5) Then set it on top of those nuts, and mark it with a sharpie like so:

Everything went back on in the reverse order. I didn't have a bearing installation tool to use for putting the bearing back in, which is almost as big as a pain. I don't know what the best method is but I cleaned up the bearing recesses, greased them lightly, then pressed in new bearing races using a block of wood and light hammer blows in a circular pattern to make sure it was going in straight. Once I got the races installed, I installed the bearing on the stem by tapping it down slowing and gently. Everything seated nicely when I did the 36lb torque on the notched nuts. When I backed them back off to 2lbs it was silky smooth and nice and light.

Click to expand...

This isn't a blatant attempt to promote the steering nut wrench I make, just a couple of things I have learned in the course of the researching and making these.

The socket approach that you took is a lower cost way of tightening the nuts. Where it presents a problem is the amount of torque that is applied to the nut. When the socket is used the center line of the torque wrench is directly over the center line of the nut. When the Yamaha specified wrench is used, the torque is applied about 2 3/8" from of center of the nut. This changes the amount of torque that that is applied due to the leverage of the wrench

What happens is that less than the recommended torque is applied to the nut when using a socket.

It even makes a difference if the torque wrench is at 90 degrees to the wrench (recommended, shown in 2nd picture) or in line with the wrench (shown in 3rd picture).

If you mount the tool on on a torque wrench at a 90 degree angle to the torque wrench . You may set the torque wrench to the exact torque spec.

• If you mount it at a 45 DEG. angle or straight in line. You have to do a small calculation to compensate for the additional length.
• In other words you set your torque wrench at a lower setting to compensate for the added length.
• Here are two links that will do the calculation for you as well as explain it.
• The second link actually gives you a pic of the torque wrench setup.
  ​

http://www.freeinfostuff.com/TorqueE...eExtension.htm

http://www.belknaptools.com/extcalc.asp

Also attached is a cut from the VMax manual showing the procedure for setting the bearing torque. (1st picture)

Gary

If any one else needs steering bearings I am keeping the all balls bearing kit in stock & they come with all the seals. I have used these in numerous bikes with no problems & there only $ 28 bucks plus shipping.

Looks like quite a job, I do get some low speed wobble and I will need to attempt this sometime soon.

Where can I get the torque wrench?

contact 'dingy' on the forum.

The lower inner race is a *******. What was Yamaha thinking? I replaced the bearings and races on my brother's bike last year. I used a Dremel tool and cutting wheel attachment. I basically made a diagonal cut across the race until the cut was almost through the race completely. A few raps with a chisel and the race broke and fell out. I would warn anybody attempting this method to work slowly and carefully, as not to end up cutting into the steering head. I spoke with a technician at the local Yamaha dealership. Their method is to weld a small bolt to the race so that a drift can be applied to the bolt to knock the race out. Sounds wonderful if you have a welder. Most people don't.

best solution is using a common electrode welder and just weld a small seam on the racer, if it doesn't drop after cooling down just get a chisel and supporting it on the seam hammer it down.

The heat from the welder does most of it ! the bead helps to have something to put the punch on but if you heat the race up as hot as the welder would get it the punch will bite into it & knock it right out. i very seldom weld on them any more just heat them up with the torch & knock them out. I know not every one has all these around but if you have them it makes it easy.

CaptainKyle said:

The heat from the welder does most of it ! the bead helps to have something to put the punch on but if you heat the race up as hot as the welder would get it the punch will bite into it & knock it right out. i very seldom weld on them any more just heat them up with the torch & knock them out. I know not every one has all these around but if you have them it makes it easy.

Click to expand...

Agreed... No sense on dremel it out risking the steering neck paint. Its like a girl... Give her some heat and she will fall to your feet... :eusa_dance:
**** it rimed... :biglaugh:

I am fixing to put a grease fitting in the neck of mine so I can shoot some new grease in there from time to time. Harley was even smart enough to put a grease fitting in a lot of there bikes.

When I bought my bike I thought everything was fine until riding another vmax. In the process I discovered that my steering was very tight. I didnt read the FSM, so I tightened the ring nuts and the bike was not ride-able. Then I loosened the ring nuts and gave the bike to my friend, he pointed out that it shimmies at 40 - 55mph. I followed the FSM to the letter this time and the bike rides better than ever. However the shimmy is still there, take your hands off the handlebars and the shimmy turns into a tank slapper.

The bike has 13k miles on it, and I am not sure if I should go looser on the ring nuts. Experience says I should but im not sure.

Thoughts?

I just re-adjusted my steering head bearings and the steering is better than ever. For some reason I had some built up tension from when I was adjusting my forks oil levels that when I loosened the lower triple tree bolts it released the tension. I adjusted the lock rings with Dingy's spanner wrench and buttoned everything back up properly.
I went through some bumpy high speed sweepers that used to cause the bike to wallow badly but today it was much better, which surprised me enough to turn around and run them again at a higher speed. The wallow is still there but barely noticeable. I have added Progressive HD 440 shocks, delrin motor mounts, and progressive fork springs with Ricor Intiminators which has made a very noticeable change for the better.
Edit: Stock height shocks @ 13", and forks lowered by 2"