Steering head wear

[tunnelrider]

Hi everyone,
In five years of stewardship of my R65 I've never had to visit the steering. But on the last big tour a few weeks ago I've noticed the steering head/ forks getting clunky sounding over rough ground/road and a tiny bit of give/click if I pull the fork stanchions forward evenly on the center stand.
I presume I'll be redoing the steering bearings but wonder if anyone recommends just retightening the tensioner -  maybe all that is needed for maintenance of this?
Thanks in advance for any info.

[Barry]

If they have got to the stage where there was enough slack to cause a clunk then they may be damaged but no harm in trying to adjust them and see if they still turn smoothly. You will need to slacken off the top triple clamps first.  It's possible the clunks are not due to the steering head bearings.

One scenario where you can often get away with just a clean and re-grease is where notchiness in the steering is caused by old dried out grease.

[tunnelrider]

they may be damaged but no harm in trying to adjust them and see if they still turn smoothly. You will need to slacken off the top triple clamps first.  It's possible the clunks are not due to the steering head bearings.

Thanks for your reply Barry and the tip about slackening the triple clamps, do you mean slackening both of them at the fork stanchions? Your mention the clunks might not be due to the steering yes but I've got your suggested early  hardier nylon stoppers in the forks...  Hope I'm not the first to bust them!  I'm not thinking them at the mo

[Barry]

Tighten the bearing will try to push the top triple clamp downwards slightly so that is the reason for slacking the clamps. No need to do the bottom ones.

I was thinking about fork clunks but if you have not had a problem with the forks being noisy I suppose there is no reason for them to start unless fork oil level is low.

If you haven't adjusted the head bearing before there is another bit of fun in store.  That wide headed Allen screw in the centre of the top triple tree can be tight as hell. The torque setting is something like 90Ftlbs and then there may be stiction under that wide cap head. There are several previous threads on the topic.

[tunnelrider]

Thanks Barry I'll search and read up after changing the fork oil.