#1
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Victory (Of sorts)
After several months I have managed to identify the headset fitted to
my Giant OCR. It is manufactured under licence from Cane Creek by VP Components and has the code: VP-A01ACG. It consists of 5 parts, a crown race, two bearings built into press fit cups, a centering spacer to align the top of the steerer and a top cover / seal. It is a hideous piece of design and those responsible should be taken out and shot! The bearings cannot be replaced or removed and servicing is only possible (If that is the word) by removing the seal and washing them out with WD-40 before attempting to shoehorn enough grease in to actually do anything. The dimensions used (30mm ID crown race / 41.4mm ID head tube / 28.6mm steerer) are incompatible with *everything* except for four that I can find. An FSA aftermarket replacement for which there is no available information. Two possibilies manufactured by Tien Hsin Industries (A specialist in OEM parts for manufacturers!) and the original piece by VP Components. The latter three all consist of one-piece bearing / cup arrangements or caged bearings and I have no information on the former (But strongly suspect it to be a rebadge of one of the TH ones!). All other integral headsets (Excluding Chris King's) are based on an head tube of ID of 44mm which means that I cannot upgrade to a more common standard. What really ****es me off (Other than Giant's blatant disregard for post-sales servicing) is that the Giant engineer that I spoke to at the ToB had no understanding of the headset and told me in no uncertain terms that I just had to pull the bearing out and take it to a shop who would be able to order a replacement. It would appear that even their own staff do not know what they use. All of this sadly means that until I can find a reliable source for a replacement headset with either serviceable bearings, or replaceable cartridge ones, I will have to withdraw my previous positive comments about the Giant OCR. The bottom end OCR and TCR frames come with "normal" Aheadsets, but the headset fitted to mine appears to be standard on all OCR and TCR frames above that. It may be better than the purely integrated systems, but this still sucks! Grrr. rant over Jon |
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#2
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Victory (Of sorts)
Jon is Away! wrote:
After several months I have managed to identify the headset fitted to my Giant OCR. It is manufactured under licence from Cane Creek by VP Components and has the code: VP-A01ACG. It consists of 5 parts, a crown race, two bearings built into press fit cups, a centering spacer to align the top of the steerer and a top cover / seal. It is a hideous piece of design and those responsible should be taken out and shot! The bearings cannot be replaced or removed and servicing is only possible (If that is the word) by removing the seal and washing them out with WD-40 before attempting to shoehorn enough grease in to actually do anything. The dimensions used (30mm ID crown race / 41.4mm ID head tube / 28.6mm steerer) are incompatible with *everything* except for four that I can find. An FSA aftermarket replacement for which there is no available information. Two possibilies manufactured by Tien Hsin Industries (A specialist in OEM parts for manufacturers!) and the original piece by VP Components. The latter three all consist of one-piece bearing / cup arrangements or caged bearings and I have no information on the former (But strongly suspect it to be a rebadge of one of the TH ones!). All other integral headsets (Excluding Chris King's) are based on an head tube of ID of 44mm which means that I cannot upgrade to a more common standard. What really ****es me off (Other than Giant's blatant disregard for post-sales servicing) is that the Giant engineer that I spoke to at the ToB had no understanding of the headset and told me in no uncertain terms that I just had to pull the bearing out and take it to a shop who would be able to order a replacement. It would appear that even their own staff do not know what they use. All of this sadly means that until I can find a reliable source for a replacement headset with either serviceable bearings, or replaceable cartridge ones, I will have to withdraw my previous positive comments about the Giant OCR. The bottom end OCR and TCR frames come with "normal" Aheadsets, but the headset fitted to mine appears to be standard on all OCR and TCR frames above that. It may be better than the purely integrated systems, but this still sucks! Grrr. rant over Jon Jon, I thought Giant used FSA bits for their hidden headsets. I know my daughter found the right one out of the catalogue for her Giant MTB. http://www.fullspeedahead.com/fly.as...oduct&taxid=34 -- There will never be true sexual equality until women accept that the default position of a toilet seat is UP |
#3
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Victory (Of sorts)
Jon is Away! wrote:
The dimensions used (30mm ID crown race / 41.4mm ID head tube / 28.6mm steerer) are incompatible with *everything* except for four that I can find. An FSA aftermarket replacement for which there is no available information. Two possibilies manufactured by Tien Hsin Industries (A specialist in OEM parts for manufacturers!) and the original piece by VP Components. The latter three all consist of one-piece bearing / cup arrangements or caged bearings and I have no information on the former (But strongly suspect it to be a rebadge of one of the TH ones!). Revise above to three types. The TH ones were in a PDF called "The Headset Book" which is a download from FSA's website. Thus it is *extremely* likely that their's is one of those. So in all... three options, one which is possibly serviceable and two which can only be replaced. If someone here works for a bearing manufacturer and could produce a sealed cartridge bearing similar to the following: OD 38mm ID 30.15mm (Not as essential, must be greater than 28.6mm though!) External chamfered angle: 45 degrees Internal chamfered angle: 36 degrees then I would be able to fit a headset designed for a 1" steerer but with those bearings and the remaining parts from my 1 1/8". Wiggle do sell my forks with a 1" steerer, but £115 + headset cost seems a little excessive to replace some dodgy bearings. Jon |
#4
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Victory (Of sorts)
Pete Whelan wrote:
I thought Giant used FSA bits for their hidden headsets. I know my daughter found the right one out of the catalogue for her Giant MTB. http://www.fullspeedahead.com/fly.as...oduct&taxid=34 They sort of do... On the top model TCR they use a named FSA headset. On all other models (That I can see) they use the VP Components one that is on mine. The story gets more interesting in that FSA's headsets are (all?) manufactured in Taiwan by TH Industries. The next question is (Assuming I could source it), are cartridge bearings a better or worse option that caged bearings, given that in the cartridges are integrated into the cups and thus cannot be easily replaced? Jon |
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