All Balls stem bearing job.

[infidel]

My Busa just turned over 34k. I had noticed that when on a lift, the bars wanted to center themselves. A tech-savvy friend said that the condition is called "brinneling", and is caused by the balls sitting on the same portion of the races and causing indentations.

Heavy bike + heavy rider + 34,000 miles = brinneling.



You can actually feel the dents in the race. The old ball bearings were also damn near completely devoid of grease. I replaced them with the ever popular All Balls tapered bearing kit and am very impressed with the difference in handling. She feels 150 pounds lighter because now it steers like it was designed to. Money well spent.



I made sure the new bearings and races had a liberal supply of Power Punch grease, so hopefully they'll have a long life.

The only real issue was removing the old outer races. They seemed to want to tilt, forcing me to stop and tap them back into alignment before I could proceed. The kit seems to be of very high quality, and I thought the price (about $25) was more than fair.

This might be a good thing to check if your steering feels heavier than it should.

 

[rubbersidedown]

How did you decide on torque values or did you just do it by feel,or the old harley way (fall away) LOL.

Did you seat them in,then re-adjust?

Did you use a hi quality synthetic grease?

RSD.

 

[infidel]

Did it by feel.

I'll ride it a little, then check again.

I used Power-Punch. Not sure if it's synthetic, but it's good stuff.

 

[jellyrug]

How did you decide on torque values or did you just do it by feel,or the old harley way (fall away) LOL.


RSD.

I always wonder which Harley Engineer had the time on his hands to think out the "Fall Away" method. It has never made any sense to me.

 

[red1100cc]

maybe this winter. $25 why not, i should be about 50k by then. :thumbs: thanks for the write up and pics.

 

[rubbersidedown]

I always wonder which Harley Engineer had the time on his hands to think out the "Fall Away" method. It has never made any sense to me.

It is a decent sounding theory that I have used...on Harley's.

never on any sportbike. Always curious about others methods. There is actually tons of force on the bearings here,and the up-graded bearing sets are supposed to be able to handle being torqued down more than stock. The synthetics(grease types) are "in theory" better for higher loads and possess better cling properties.

Power Punch is a lithium based product.

RSD.