BMX Bike Headset Repair Tips

Video Transcript

"I'm going to go back over, to the issue of headsets because they're really probably the most common problem that people have from a mechanical stand point. As I said before basically you have a head tube and you have barrings that are sitting either in the cups or in this case in a integrated headset rather it would be cups or machine ending the frame while the barrings setting directly in the frame. And basically what happens is if your headset is too loose, the barrings will actually rotate back and forth. And if they have proper compression on them, those barrings won't move because they will be stuck down on the races. So basically if your headset is too loose, it will rattle around and you will actually, as they shift back and forth they can cause wear to access wear to occur and especially in a frame of integrated headset. That's a big problem because you can completely destroy your frame in just a couple of hours of riding. So if you notice that you have any sort of rattling or crick in the front end, that's something you want to take care of immediately. To take care of it it's very simple with any stem. You're going to have pinched bolts, a setup that basically clamps the stem onto your steer tube. You want to loosen up the pinched bolts. In this case this one has one bolt right there and you loosen everything up and then you tightened this compression bolt on the top, this will actually preload the barrings more. One thing you want to avoid with is over tightening the barrings cause that can cause the barring to wear too fast. Generally if you pick your bike up and rotate it around, you want everything very smooth, you don't want to feel any binding, but some people do prefer to tightening the headsets a little bit more so that if your handlebars don't move too much during no handed tricks. Basically as long as you keep your headset tight and you don't notice any noises, nothing is binding or grinding, then your good to go."