Steve,
Thanks for the advise; please explain the benefit to using a few less bearings than Chuck advised. I understand why they are not needed, but am not sure if there is a benefit, or are you advising what I can get away with assuming some of my ball bearings are playing hide and seek for the next year or so?
Oh, and thanks for making me feel good with your "bearings on the floor" story.....
..... I've did that too the first time I rebuilt the Stronglight V4 headset on my 1st PX10E....
Bet we could all come up with a few more funny stories of learning curves or absent mindedness.
Eric Elman
Somers, CT
> Actually, the number doesn't matter a whole lot, but it's far better to
> have too few than too many. I would modify Chuck's suggestion,
> though--fill the race and remove two or three. The balls are tiny, and
> there are a lot of them. So, the necessary space between any two
> adjacent balls, times the number of spaces, will come to a few diameters.
>
> Don't feel stupid. We've all been there. A while ago I was removing a
> fork from a really old bike, and it didn't occur to me that (1) the
> balls might not be in a retainer, and (2) the headset grease might be
> totally gone. As I unscrewed the nut, suddenly balls started pouring out
> of the lower bearing. I instinctively pushed the fork back up into the
> frame, and then they started pouring out of the upper one. I stood there
> feeling like a total moron as what seemed like thousands of tiny bearing
> balls bounced happily around the garage. I'm still finding those suckers.
>
> Steve Maas
> Long Beach, California
>
>
>
> Eric Elman wrote:
>
> > I've just dissassembeled the freewheel body (Suntour PL, steel body
alloy
> > cogs) and forgot to count the number of bearings in the outer race
before
> > pulling the center out and the bearings from both races going all over
the
> > place. Am I alone or are some of you thinking "been there, done that."
So,
> > now everything is all cleaned up and ready to assemble but I need to
know
> > how many bearings in total I should have and how many go in the outer
race
> > and how many into the inner race.
> >
> > Seems like I do something like this at least twice a year. When will I
> > learn?
> >
> > Thanks in advance to anyone with info,
> >
> > Eric "feeling stupid" Elman
> > Somers, CT
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> >
> > .