Steering stem head change help

I searched for a couple days and couldn't really find info on this so my apologies in advance if this has been covered.

My steering stem head has a broken handlebar bolt in it that the previous owner completely fubar'd trying to get out. I got another one over the weekend but how easy is it to swap out? From the looks of the one I just bought it seems simple but somehow I always get in way over my head on these things.

Thanks,

Tom

What bike,Tom?(put it in your signature line)

And are you sure you can't extract what's left of the old bolt?

Doing the swap is pretty straight forward,but if you DO go that route,you should consider swapping the old-school steering bearings,with a set of tapered bearings...well worth it.

You'll have to get the front end off the ground for starters...remove the handlebars and gauges.
It will be a lot easier too,if you remove the front wheel.(less weight).
But like I mentioned,you really should swap the bearings for tapered,so if you ARE going to go that route,then there's a bit more involved.You'll have to remove the forks completely,instead of just sliding them down,below the top section of the triple-tree...

Not really that bad to do. Id change it over to the tapered steering head bearings while I was doing it instead of the little ball bearings that will be all dried out. You need some type of a bike lift that will keep the frontend off the ground is all. I like to drill & tap the neck for a grease fitting too

Sandy wrote:

What bike,Tom?(put it in your signature line)

And are you sure you can't extract what's left of the old bolt?

Doing the swap is pretty straight forward,but if you DO go that route,you should consider swapping the old-school steering bearings,with a set of tapered bearings...well worth it.

You'll have to get the front end off the ground for starters...remove the handlebars and gauges.
It will be a lot easier too,if you remove the front wheel.(less weight).
But like I mentioned,you really should swap the bearings for tapered,so if you ARE going to go that route,then there's a bit more involved.You'll have to remove the forks completely,instead of just sliding them down,below the top section of the triple-tree...

Doh! I knew I forgot something. The bike is a 78 KZ650B. I thought I could just extract it but they got into the threads pretty bad on the previous attempt. Thanks for the info, I was contemplating doing the bearings at the same time.

Tom

If it's just the top of your triple tree where the handlebars mount, that's real easy to change, just unbolt the bars, unbolt the big center nut, the center pinch bolt, the 2 bolts that clamp it to the forks and lift up enough to unbolt the 2 bolts that hold your instruments on. You can do all this with the front wheel still on the ground. If you do change bearings of course you'll need to prop up the front, remove the wheel and fork legs, unbolt the center adjustment nut and drop the stem out of the bottom while 39 1/4" balls fall out and roll all over the floor. Put in the new tapered bearings and reassemble. I put the tapered in the KZ1000MKII and 2 of the KZ650s and to tell you the truth, getting rid of dried up balls and hammered races and replacing with tapered I could not detect any difference at all.

Thanks for all of your help. Hopefully I will have time tonight after I mow my hay....I mean yard.

RonKZ650 wrote:

I put the tapered in the KZ1000MKII and 2 of the KZ650s and to tell you the truth, getting rid of dried up balls and hammered races and replacing with tapered I could not detect any difference at all.

Wow Ron...seriously?!
My bearings must have been in pretty rough shape then,because when I switched over to the tapered bearings,I couldn't BELIEVE the difference in how well the bike handled...mostly in corners.It flowed so much better...like a brand new bike.