Installing threadless headset: ream head tube?

Instructions coming with Cane Creek S-3 headset more than suggests, they say
it is imperative that the head tube be reamed prior to pressing in the cups.
Is reaming standard practice when installing headsets?

This is an external set (ie, not incorporated type) with sealed bearings.
The frame is 6061-T6 aluminum with 1&1/8 inch threadless steer tube.

Thanks.

On 20 Sep, 07:52, Paul Conners wrote:
Instructions coming with Cane Creek S-3 headset more than suggests, they say
it is imperative that the head tube be reamed prior to pressing in the cups.
Is reaming standard practice when installing headsets?

Only when the frame builder hasn't.


This is an external set (ie, not incorporated type) with sealed bearings.
The frame is 6061-T6 aluminum with 1&1/8 inch threadless steer tube.


I know little about your specification, my comment applies to steel
frames and may be less relevant with your setup.

On Sep 20, 12:05*am, someone wrote:
On 20 Sep, 07:52, Paul Conners wrote:

Instructions coming with Cane Creek S-3 headset more than suggests, they say
it is imperative that the head tube be reamed prior to pressing in the cups.
Is reaming standard practice when installing headsets?

Only when the frame builder hasn't.



This is an external set (ie, not incorporated type) with sealed bearings.
The frame is 6061-T6 aluminum with 1&1/8 inch threadless steer tube.

I know little about your specification, my comment applies to steel
frames and may be less relevant with your setup.

Well then just measure the OD of the cups @ 3 different locations &
average. Them do the same for the ID of the head tube. The
interference should be ~0.10MM. I.E. the OD of the cups should be
about 0.10MM larger that the the head tube. But make certain to
average both sets of measurements. An accurate set of vernier calipers
can be had for very little $, in case you don't own one, but are a
real pain to use for people much over 40 yrs old & very easy to make
errors with.
Good dial indicators aren't a lot more expensive & a whole lot easer
to read. However U are stuck w/ either inches or MMs & have to use a
pocket calculator to convert back & forth. In this age of stupid
American patriotism we haven't converted to a totally metric system
( "If inches & fractions & quarts, teaspones were good enough for our
fore fathers, then why should we, the greatest nation in the world
bother to change to accommodate 95% of the industrialized world?") But
I digress.
If we have to deal w/ both systems an electronic digital caliber makes
the most sense. I think I saw a Mitutoyo digital caliper of 6'" (more
or less the standard size) on sale for about $100 @ ENCO. Mitutoyo is
certainly one of the top brands of precision measuring instruments in
the world.
Park has a new model out that reads out in thousandths of an inch, MM,
& fractions of an inch (which is a cool feature). I would be very
careful about its accuracy before I bought one. Some cheap Chines
Calipers are no more accurate than +- 0.007" . To me, that's not
acceptability accurate.

On Sep 20, 12:52*am, Paul Conners wrote:
Instructions coming with Cane Creek S-3 headset more than suggests, they say
it is imperative that the head tube be reamed prior to pressing in the cups.
Is reaming standard practice when installing headsets?

This is an external set (ie, not incorporated type) with sealed bearings.
The frame is 6061-T6 aluminum with 1&1/8 inch threadless steer tube.

Thanks.

Yes and in my experience, most frames DO NOT come prepped. BBs,
headtubes(external headsets) all the other threaded places, bosses,
etc.

On 09/20/2009 04:57 AM, P. Chisholm wrote:
On Sep 20, 12:52�am, Paul wrote:
Instructions coming with Cane Creek S-3 headset more than suggests, they say
it is imperative that the head tube be reamed prior to pressing in the cups.
Is reaming standard practice when installing headsets?

This is an external set (ie, not incorporated type) with sealed bearings.
The frame is 6061-T6 aluminum with 1&1/8 inch threadless steer tube.

Thanks.

Yes and in my experience, most frames DO NOT come prepped.

???


BBs,
headtubes(external headsets) all the other threaded places, bosses,
etc.

the last thing you want on a bb is a loose thread because it's been
"prepped" too much. loose thread exacerbates the problem of the bb
moving, and over time this wears the thread out. [creaky cannondale
anyone?] as long as the facing is square and the bb can be installed,
leave the thread alone. even the facing doesn't matter that much if
you're using a cartridge bb.

On Sep 20, 10:56*am, Still Just Me!
wrote:
On Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:28:05 -0700 (PDT), jay
wrote:



On Sep 20, 12:05*am, someone wrote:
On 20 Sep, 07:52, Paul Conners wrote:

Instructions coming with Cane Creek S-3 headset more than suggests, they say
it is imperative that the head tube be reamed prior to pressing in the cups.
Is reaming standard practice when installing headsets?

Only when the frame builder hasn't.

This is an external set (ie, not incorporated type) with sealed bearings.
The frame is 6061-T6 aluminum with 1&1/8 inch threadless steer tube.

I know little about your specification, my comment applies to steel
frames and may be less relevant with your setup.

Well then just measure the OD of the cups @ 3 different locations &
average. Them do the same for the ID of the head tube. The
interference should be ~0.10MM. I.E. the OD of the cups should be
about 0.10MM larger that the the head tube. But make certain to
average both sets of measurements. An accurate set of vernier calipers
can be had for very little $, in case you don't own one, but are a
real pain to use for people much over 40 yrs old & very easy to make
errors with.
Good dial indicators aren't a lot more expensive & a whole lot easer
to read. However U are stuck w/ either inches or MMs & have to use a
pocket calculator to convert back & forth. In this age of stupid
American patriotism we haven't converted to a totally metric system
( "If inches & fractions & quarts, teaspones were good enough for our
fore fathers, then why should we, the greatest nation in the world
bother to change to accommodate 95% of the industrialized world?") But
I digress.
If we have to deal w/ both systems an electronic digital caliber makes
the most sense. I think I saw a Mitutoyo digital caliper of 6'" (more
or less the standard size) on sale for about $100 @ ENCO. *Mitutoyo is
certainly one of the top brands of precision measuring instruments in
the world.
Park has a new model out that reads out in thousandths of an inch, MM,
& fractions of an inch (which is a cool feature). I would be very
careful about its accuracy before I bought one. Some cheap Chines
Calipers are no more accurate than +- 0.007" . To me, that's not
acceptability accurate.

Yeah, you can measure it down to a thousandth - or you can just press
it in and go for it. It's a bike, not a watch or a space shuttle.

Bench clamp, wood blocks, slow and steady is the game. Or pay Homer at
the shop a six pack if he's bored monday morning.

landotter wrote:
On Sep 20, 10:56 am, Still Just Me!
wrote:
On Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:28:05 -0700 (PDT), jay
wrote:



On Sep 20, 12:05 am, someone wrote:
On 20 Sep, 07:52, Paul Conners wrote:
Instructions coming with Cane Creek S-3 headset more than suggests, they say
it is imperative that the head tube be reamed prior to pressing in the cups.
Is reaming standard practice when installing headsets?
Only when the frame builder hasn't.
This is an external set (ie, not incorporated type) with sealed bearings.
The frame is 6061-T6 aluminum with 1&1/8 inch threadless steer tube.
I know little about your specification, my comment applies to steel
frames and may be less relevant with your setup.
Well then just measure the OD of the cups @ 3 different locations &
average. Them do the same for the ID of the head tube. The
interference should be ~0.10MM. I.E. the OD of the cups should be
about 0.10MM larger that the the head tube. But make certain to
average both sets of measurements. An accurate set of vernier calipers
can be had for very little $, in case you don't own one, but are a
real pain to use for people much over 40 yrs old & very easy to make
errors with.
Good dial indicators aren't a lot more expensive & a whole lot easer
to read. However U are stuck w/ either inches or MMs & have to use a
pocket calculator to convert back & forth. In this age of stupid
American patriotism we haven't converted to a totally metric system
( "If inches & fractions & quarts, teaspones were good enough for our
fore fathers, then why should we, the greatest nation in the world
bother to change to accommodate 95% of the industrialized world?") But
I digress.
If we have to deal w/ both systems an electronic digital caliber makes
the most sense. I think I saw a Mitutoyo digital caliper of 6'" (more
or less the standard size) on sale for about $100 @ ENCO. Mitutoyo is
certainly one of the top brands of precision measuring instruments in
the world.
Park has a new model out that reads out in thousandths of an inch, MM,
& fractions of an inch (which is a cool feature). I would be very
careful about its accuracy before I bought one. Some cheap Chines
Calipers are no more accurate than +- 0.007" . To me, that's not
acceptability accurate.
Yeah, you can measure it down to a thousandth - or you can just press
it in and go for it. It's a bike, not a watch or a space shuttle.

Bench clamp, wood blocks, slow and steady is the game. Or pay Homer at
the shop a six pack if he's bored monday morning.

Why do we often expect our products to perform better than we are
willing to pay to maintain them correctly?

Only required once. If the frame's been built up it's been done or at least
the
last guy got by without it. Are there tooling marks? Frames usually have all
that sort of work done before shipping now.

Yes, it's been done before. This is a used frame; replacing threaded with
threadless fork & headset.

I see a ridge a little way inside the head tube, both top and bottom. Looks
like it's already been done once.

That answers my Q. Thanks to all (except Z ;-) ) for your help.

Paul

On Sep 20, 7:55*pm, RonSonic wrote:
On Sun, 20 Sep 2009 11:15:20 -0700, Paul Conners wrote:
Only required once. If the frame's been built up it's been done or at least
the
last guy got by without it. Are there tooling marks? Frames usually have all
that sort of work done before shipping now.

Yes, it's been done before. This is a used frame; replacing threaded with
threadless fork & headset.

I see a ridge a little way inside the head tube, both top and bottom. Looks
like it's already been done once.

That answers my Q. Thanks to all (except Z ;-) ) for your help.

Just want to say that Peter's seen a lot more new frames than I have. If he says
they don't usually come pre-prepped then believe him and I'll just consider
myself lucky.

Even frames commonly sold to consumers to build up may require prep.
One of the key reasons I didn't buy a Surly Karate Monkey frame was
that I was putting off ordering it until I could find someone to do
the prep at head tube and bottom bracket and check the frame end
alignment. I failed to find someone to do it for just long enough for
me to change my mind and buy a better complete bike made by someone
else.

That leads me to another observation, that far too many mail order
merchants don't have workshops, or if they have they don't want to
perform services essential to the utility of the frames they sell.

As an example, I wanted to buy a 1" RST suspended fork but these forks
are sold without a steerer tube, so you have to buy the steerer
separately and press it in. I don't have facilities for this and
neither does my LBS. I asked Roseversand in Germany, who do have a
perfectly reputable workshop, whether, if I bought fork and steerer
from them, they would fit the two together for me. I asked them twice
and each time they ignored the question and tried to sell me separate
pieces. There may be some perceived liability problem.

With the Surly KM the case was the same; I asked three mailorder
merchants what they would charge to prepare the frame and received
either an unsatisfactory (evasive) reply that amounted to trying to
sell me the frame without the work or no reply at all or a reply that
ignored my request and answered another question. Again, it may be a
liability problem. The upshot was that I didn't buy a Surly frame
despite being so keen that at one stage I was even looking into buying
the necessary tools to do the frame prep myself (they would have cost
the larger part of the frame price again).

As for the box-pushers in the city, some of them may in years gone by
have been bicycle mechanics, but today their limit is adjusting your
brakes and demanding EUR 50 for the service; it will be no loss when
half of them go under in the current economic climate. Frankly, that
shower of multiple gym memberships doesn't inspire confidence that
there won't be cause for a liability suit, which will be scant
consolation for a faceplant or worse.

The solution is of course for the manufacturer to prepare the frame
properly or (in Surly's and probably the standard case) have the
Chinese factory prep the frame correctly and pass the cost on to the
customer. It is obvious to me that the absent frame prep is a cost-
saving measure.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Bicycles at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/...20CYCLING.html

On Sep 20, 9:17*pm, Andre Jute wrote:
On Sep 20, 7:55*pm, RonSonic wrote:





On Sun, 20 Sep 2009 11:15:20 -0700, Paul Conners wrote:
Only required once. If the frame's been built up it's been done or at least
the
last guy got by without it. Are there tooling marks? Frames usually have all
that sort of work done before shipping now.

Yes, it's been done before. This is a used frame; replacing threaded with
threadless fork & headset.

I see a ridge a little way inside the head tube, both top and bottom. Looks
like it's already been done once.

That answers my Q. Thanks to all (except Z ;-) ) for your help.

Just want to say that Peter's seen a lot more new frames than I have. If he says
they don't usually come pre-prepped then believe him and I'll just consider
myself lucky.

Even frames commonly sold to consumers to build up may require prep.
One of the key reasons I didn't buy a Surly Karate Monkey frame was
that I was putting off ordering it until I could find someone to do
the prep at head tube and bottom bracket and check the frame end
alignment. I failed to find someone to do it for just long enough for
me to change my mind and buy a better complete bike made by someone
else.

That leads me to another observation, that far too many mail order
merchants don't have workshops, or if they have they don't want to
perform services essential to the utility of the frames they sell.

As an example, I wanted to buy a 1" RST suspended fork but these forks
are sold without a steerer tube, so you have to buy the steerer
separately and press it in. I don't have facilities for this and
neither does my LBS. I asked Roseversand in Germany, who do have a
perfectly reputable workshop, whether, if I bought fork and steerer
from them, they would fit the two together for me. I asked them twice
and each time they ignored the question and tried to sell me separate
pieces. There may be some perceived liability problem.

With the Surly KM the case was the same; I asked three mailorder
merchants what they would charge to prepare the frame and received
either an unsatisfactory (evasive) reply that amounted to trying to
sell me the frame without the work or no reply at all or a reply that
ignored my request and answered another question. Again, it may be a
liability problem. The upshot was that I didn't buy a Surly frame
despite being so keen that at one stage I was even looking into buying
the necessary tools to do the frame prep myself (they would have cost
the larger part of the frame price again).

As for the box-pushers in the city, some of them may in years gone by
have been bicycle mechanics, but today their limit is adjusting your
brakes and demanding EUR 50 for the service; it will be no loss when
half of them go under in the current economic climate. Frankly, that
shower of multiple gym memberships doesn't inspire confidence that
there won't be cause for a liability suit, which will be scant
consolation for a faceplant or worse.

The solution is of course for the manufacturer to prepare the frame
properly or (in Surly's and probably the standard case) have the
Chinese factory prep the frame correctly and pass the cost on to the
customer. It is obvious to me that the absent frame prep is a cost-
saving measure.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Bicycles at
*http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/...20CYCLING.html

Of course, I exclude from my strictures those responsible frame
sellers who face off the bottom bracket and ream the headset properly.
Long may they prosper. And even longer if they provide their frames
with headsets (and, less important) bottom brackets fitted. It is
noticeable that their frames do not cost vastly more than the rough
crap sold by the careless and the cheap. -- AJ