[Ducati23]

Has anyone tried replacing the ball bearings in your ST3/4s steering stem with tapered bearings?

http://secure.speedymoto.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SP&Product_Code=03-02TB

I've heard that these can provide better feel, and less maintenance than the stock ball bearings, but wondered if anyone on the forum here had tried them. Since my front end is all tore apart, and if these will fit, I may have to give them a try.

 

[acpdx]

I've done this on R1's I've had.
My 91 FZR1000 came with them, the R1's didnt. I heard the reason they went away from the taper roller bearings was because of the effort to get it right. With the increase is surface area, (by what 5 to 10 times more?)they go from loose to tight very quickly. The round ones have a lil more squeze before feeling tight at the bars.
After that, they were alot less work.
For the guys, sorry-"people" doing wheelies/stoppies, its an upgrade.
they will take the abuse. personaly-i'm verticaly challenged. so, wheelies-not so much.

when GP Suspension freshens up my forks, I'll upgrade to taper rollers.

Andrew

 

[Ducati23]

Just got a message back from SpeedyMoto on these, and they say that the tapered bearings will fit all Ducatis from 2002 on including the ST3.

My forks are also going into GP Supension, so I guess my tapered bearings will be on order tommorrow!

Now to figure out how to loosen that large nut without "buggering" it up and getting the bearings out.....

 

[acpdx]

accordnig to the ducati shop manual,
it looks like, pull the top triple clamp 1st.
then see.

Andrew

 

[Ducati23]

By loosening the large aluminum nut under the top triple clamp, the streering stem easily came out. Both the top and bottom stem bearings looked fine and well lubed at about 4500mi.

I was a bit concerned with getting the races out of the frame, but with a couple knocks from an aluminum tube placed thru the frame both races came out.

I'll get the new tapered bearings installed and post back the result.

Why am I doing this? umm....its' raining, I don't want to ride in it, so I guess I'll work on it....

 

[acpdx]

"Why am I doing this? umm....its' raining, I don't want to ride in it, so I guess I'll work on it...."

lol absolutley!

Andrew

 

[JDuc]

any results?

 

[dharhay]

Send me a PM and I can email you a drawing of a simple tool to make to be sure that you do not bugger up your steering stem nut finnish.

Dave Harhay

Just got a message back from SpeedyMoto on these, and they say that the tapered bearings will fit all Ducatis from 2002 on including the ST3.

My forks are also going into GP Supension, so I guess my tapered bearings will be on order tommorrow!

Now to figure out how to loosen that large nut without "buggering" it up and getting the bearings out.....

 

[ohmfab]

Issue with roller bearing setup

All,

I just bought these bearings and am having trouble tightening them. If I torque them down to the factory spec, or even just until I take all the slack away, the steering gets VERY tight. With them loose enough so that the steering feels light there is a ton of play fore and aft in the bottom bearing.

The roller bearings in my old Yamaha FZR were also rollers and were quite easy to torque down properly so I'm not sure what the issue is with this setup for the Ducati.

Did anyone here run into the same thing? My bearing kit came with the upper and lower bearing and races and also both dust covers.

Thanks in advance!

Omer F. Khan
1999 ST4
http://www.ohmfab.com/st4

 

[JDuc]

would lead me to believe that there's a missing part somewhere in the mix or it all hasn't been put back in order

 

[Ducati23]

I put the the entire front end of my ST3 back together a few weeks ago (including new forks), and installed the tapered head bearings.

The new bearings work great. It did take some effort to get the lower bearing off of the steering stem, and the new bottom race all the way seated in the frame, but other than that, the job wasn't too tough.

My experience was that after snugging up the head nut the turning resistance did not increase until the nut was very very tight. There seems to be a large tightness range in which the turning resistance is not really effected.

In any case, the turning resistance is very light, and from the pictures I've seen of stock bearings, it looks like these new tapered bearings will last much longer than the stock ones which rust so easily.

 

[JDuc]

how many miles did you have on the stock ones?

what year?

is it garaged?

do you ride in the rain?

I'm just trying to figure out what might be a normal time for these bearings to go bad.

 

[ohmfab]

Ducati23,

Glad to hear that they worked out for you. So you were able to snug the nut down almost all the way and the the steering would turn from lock to lock freely? In my case when I tightened the bearing enough to remove all the freeplay the steering was so tight that even with the forks attached the steering would not fall freely to lock when off center. What procedure or torque did you use to snug up the top nut?

I emailed Speedymoto about the problem and they responded very quickly and were a pleasure to deal with. They actually just put a set of these bearings on an ST in their shop. After going over everything we both think that maybe I just got an out of spec or miscut bearing. They are shipping me another at his cost and even told me to not worry about shipping the old one back to him.

I'm anxious to get home this weekend and install the new set.

Thanks for the response!

Omer
'99 ST4 http://www.ohmfab.com/st4
'90 FZR (sold) http://www.ohmfab.com/fzr

 

[ohmfab]

Got the replacement bearings from Speedymoto last week and all is well. They went in without a hitch and had just a bit of resistance when all the play was dialed out with the the top nut.

Rode the bike about 200 miles yesterday on my new Pirelli Diablo Strada's and the bike rides superbly. My old steering head bearings were badly gouged and were causing some very strange headshakes at low speeds. Needless to say, its like a brand new bike again.

I highly recommend Speedymoto as they are a pleasure to deal with and genuinely care about their customers.

Omer
http://www.ohmfab.com/st4

 

[mcd]

+ 1 on the taper bearing mod and the folks at SpeedyMoto. I've found that the steering with them installed isn't quite as free/loose as one might experience with the original/stock ball bearings but they are definitely precise and very stable. Especially under hard breaking.

 

[jack]

Are the steering stem threads course or fine? Course threads will make proper tightening difficult since a little rotation applies a lot of bearing compression.

How about applying heat to the stem, bearings and frame with a hair dryer/heat gun, tighten the stem with everything "hot" (like 120° - 130°F) so that its tight, then let it cool.