First time fitting Forks

[Scudders]

Could you add a photo of the current state of the assembly?

Jonathan

This is the current state of the assembly, it's only showing the bottom as I am happy with the top part of the assembly now.

The bearing doesn't abut to the crown race and I suspect it should.

Image shows the bottom with the crown race now tapped onto the forks
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AmE3C-rF9fUUheI2uIm ... w?e=N2NQaa

[Scudders]

Could you add a photo of the current state of the assembly?

Jonathan

This is the current state of the assembly, it's only showing the bottom as I am happy with the top part of the assembly now.

The bearing doesn't abut to the crown race and I suspect it should.

Image shows the bottom with the crown race now tapped onto the forks
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AmE3C-rF9fUUheI2uIm ... w?e=N2NQaa

[531colin]

I think thats OK....the plastic seal ring will occupy most of that gap.

[gregoryoftours]

Any Advice on whether the crown race should fit right snug to the bearing or not?

Both of the Cassette Bearings are identical and fit really nicely to the compression ring. Should the fit be the same with the Bearing and the Crown Race?

instead the bearing seems to just sit on top of the crown race and only slightly engage/overlap. I'm hoping this is normal?

Thanks again.

Yes the crown race doesn't sit into the lower bearing as much as the compression ring does into the top one. In fact until the headset is fully assembled and pre-loaded it can feel decidedly 'wobbly'. The most important thing is for the crown race to be installed all of the way onto the stepped shoulder on your fork crown. It is supposed to be a tight interference fit unless it's a split crown race, so needs careful hammering fully into place without damaging it. The following photos show how it needs to fit (in my case the crown race is silver and alu but it's the same as your black metal one).

[gregoryoftours]

Could you add a photo of the current state of the assembly?

Jonathan

This is the current state of the assembly, it's only showing the bottom as I am happy with the top part of the assembly now.

The bearing doesn't abut to the crown race and I suspect it should.

Image shows the bottom with the crown race now tapped onto the forks
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AmE3C-rF9fUUheI2uIm ... w?e=N2NQaa

That's absolutely correct. The plastic seal sits on the flat part but the bearing shouldn't fit far down enough to sit on the flat part or hard up against the seal. The 2 bevelled faces are the only contact point and until the whole shebang is fully assembled it feels quite unstable.
Here is the bearing sitting on the crown race from one of my bikes, the same gap is there.

[gregoryoftours]

If the bearing sat fully down onto the crown race until it made contact with the flat part as well as the bevel, the manufacturing and fit tolerances would have to be perfect in order for the bearing to be held firm and central, level and with no binding, so it's not supposed to sit on the flat part. It can be quite disconcerting how 'poor' the fit can feel though, until it's all together and preload correctly applied.

[Scudders]

Fantastic help gregoryoftours. I had convinced myself that at very least the inner 45 degree bevel of the bearing should abut to the bevel on the crown race to offer some kind of mechanical stability... and that I was now in some-kind of dilemma where I would have to find either a bearing with different angled bevels on the inner and the outer rings or that I would have to remove crown race and find another.

You're so right it is disconcerting how unstable it feels and it's as if the bearing is just balancing on the crown race with absolute minimum engagement.

These comments in this forum have given me the confidence to crack on with this.

I fitted a stem just to hold things together until I get a chance to come back to it and it doesn't feel loose in hand, it feels solid with just the stem. I'll firm this up once tube is cut tomorrow.


Thanks again for your help and everybody else. I had visions of hauling this off to the bike shop and I didn't want to do that.

[iandusud]

Well done for seeking advice and persevering. Enjoy your build.