adjusting steering head bearings


brianj

New member
Hi Folks

Has anyone tightened up their steering head bearings?
Advice on procedures would be most appreciated
Regards Brian J.
 

bobh

Member
I haven't done the steering head on an MT-07, and I no longer have the bike.

But looking at the parts diagram online, it looks like Yamaha have moved away from their traditional design, the one I'm familiar with, and gone to a design with just the one adjusting nut, which is locked by a clamp on the top yoke.

I'd assume the procedure is similar, i.e. tighten the nut up to a fairly high torque to bed everything in, loosen it off then torque it back up again to a lower figure.

Personally when I've done Yamaha headsets I've ignored the torque readings, and just done the first tighten to a point where the bearing is obviously stiff to turn, given the steering a few waggles back and forth to settle everything down, loosened the nut off a little and then tightened it up until there's a bit of resistance but the forks (with wheel installed) will still just fall either way under their own weight. Obviously you need the front end clear of the ground for this, so if you don't have a centre stand you'll need to prop it up somehow, e.g. on an Abba stand.

I'd rather preload them a fraction on the tight side as any looseness will hammer the bearings out in short order. So if yours are showing signs of being loose, then make sure they still move smoothly after tightening, with no evidence of lumpiness.

Also I have to say that I would normally never consider just tightening up the bearings without first re-greasing them. Yamaha are not noted for being over-generous with the grease on initial assembly (and that applies to all the chassis bearings, as I've recently discovered when re-greasing all the rear suspension bearings on my Fazer).
 


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