An Inexpensive Headset Press

The expensive version

The inexpensive version

If you ever wish to install a headset, you will need a headset tool. The standard shop tool, the Park model shown above, costs about $100, and is very well built. An advantage of this tool is the rapid setup and removal of the tool, important for a shop doing lots of work. For occasional home use however, the inexpensive tool shown above works amazingly well.

• Materials (You should be able to get these parts for under $10):
  1. A long bolt, preferably fully or nearly fully threaded, and a couple of inches longer than your headtube.
  2. A nut
  3. Two large washers.
  4. Two bronze bushings (These should be available at any descent hardware store)
• Comments:
  1. Take your headset cups with you when you buy the bronze bushings, so you can get the correct size. The main part of the bushing should fit inside the headset cups with the "lip" of the bushing applying the installation pressure. The contact area will generally be inside of where the ball bearings run in the cups. Also, the bronze bushings are much softer than the bearing cup material, so there is no danger of damaging the bearing surface. The picture above shows one of the park tool inserts inside a headset cup. The homemade tool should work similarily.
  2. To use, place the headset cups in their place on the headtube, install the tool (like shown in the picture of the park tool above) and hand tighten the nut.
  3. Make sure the cups are aligned in the headtube and begin to tighen the nut with a wrench or ratchet, holding another wrench on the head of the bolt. You need to be carfull that the cups don't start to go into the headtube sideways at first, but once they start going in it is pretty easy. Keep tightening until the cups are seated.
  4. There is still one other thing you need to do, namely to install the race that goes on your fork's steerer tube. The commercial tools are basically a long tube with attachments at the end that fit over the steerer tube and are banged with a hammer to drive the race home. I don't have a picture, but I made an installation tool from a length of PVC tube that was a few inches longer than the steerer tube and of sufficient diameter to fit over the steerer tube and rest on the race. I then hammer this with a mallet to install the race, while holding the fork by one of the fork arms.
• Headset removal
  1. There are also tools for removing headsets. These are not as expensive as the installation tools.
  2. I have removed the headset cups and fork steerer races by carefully tapping them out with a brass punch. This works OK but I will soon either buy the removal tools or attempt to fabricate a homemade version. Stay tuned.

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Page byDan Goldenberg

Updated 10/06/99