Steering head adjustment

[suecanada]

The more I try to imagine a grease fitting and how it might be accomplished, the more I figure it might cause more problems than it's worth. Where does the old grease get out of the top bearing?...unlike the swingarm where old grease gets purged out by the new grease pumped in then wiped off..where would the old grease go inside the top bearing? It would be sandwiched between the bearing seal we've put in there and the ajustment ring wouldn't it?

The bottom bearing grease could just squish out the bottom of the steering stem maybe? So it might work there.

BUT, if these seals are so tight how do we turn the handlebars......thick grease made it hard so what would tight fitting seals with old grease feel like?

nhmaf is most likely right that this may not be a good place for grease fittings

The joy of doing this job on an LS..one thing anyway..is the fact that when the 13mm bolts that attach the instrument bracket to the top yoke line up with the bolt holes on the yoke, you automatically have your forks up high enough in the yoke. A little rubber hammer persuasion on the top yoke helps to bang the yoke down. A skinny piece of wood helps you get at the top yoke to tap away.

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

Congratulations Sue, on doing this job!  Congratulations, Derek, on being a standup guy!

And excellent write-up, Sue!  And making Kleineboxer forum as well!!!  [smiley=beerchug.gif]

[Ed Miller]

One other thing...My partner Derek who helped me with the reassembly part and I are hoping that someone will come up with better procedures to lift the front end back up and seat the top and bottom bearings. It was hard to get the whole assembly to go up straight as it was tiring holding and tugging. The piece of wedged wood as a blocking and lifting tool under the front wheel was the best we came up with.
<snip>

This is a little frustrating, because I know I did the job by myself but don't remember how.  My bike was just on the center stand (maybe it was on a 4" x 12" board, I don't know if I had that yet); I wonder if I tipped the bike forward to let it's own weight press the parts together?  A hydrolic jack under the rear cross member, lifting the rear controllably whilst you wiggle the front parts together?  I mean lift, wiggle, lift, wiggle, etc.  

Anyway, glad you got it done.  I think it should be good for 5 years or so now.  I don't know if I would bother with rigging up grease zirqs for this point, but like Justin suggested, if somebody else does it and tests it out, we'll see!  

Good job, Sue!  Oh, and you CAN get those top fork plugs in and out yourself, you just need to gain a hundred pounds or so, that's how I did it!

[thrang]

If you do end up replacing the bearings be very, very careful with the lower yoke stem as it's surprisingly easy to damage and costly to replace. It is the only bearing on my LS I won't touch and  take to the bike shop and get them to do it for me. I'm pretty sure that I could hire the tool for it from the BMW owners club, but it something that needs replacing that rarely that I'll pay a guy to do it for me. Like the swing arm bearings if you look after them by keeping them correctly adjusted and greased with a strip and clean every couple of years they don't seem to give much trouble. I have only had to do the head twice, and the swing arm three times in 17 years.

One mod worth thinking about with the ally top yoke which I have done on mine is earthing the top yoke to the frame, as R65's can have an electrostatic corrosion issues on the upper head bearings. (This usually shows its self as vertical black lines on the running surfaces of the races).

There is an article/info about this on either the Motorwork or Motorbinns website can't remember which. The mod was simple enough just a small tapped hole on of the upper yoke and a wire running to earth on the main frame. Next time I pull the yoke off I'll snap a piccy.

Tony