The fork off this bike
>>1845400Another example of someone 'getting it wrong' with a 1" headset. At some point in the past I talked about repairing this kind of damage using files, but never took pics.
Pretty rough. The worst is top left, a ~1/2 section where one thread has chipped off (just under four small chips). Quite a few blunted, and it's hard to tell but at the very top the threads weren't uniform (not all of the damage in the first pic has turned silver). The old steel Tange headset doesn't show thread damage, but there's pitting in the lower, it's spent.
This is one of those things where the fix kind of looks worse, partly because you're taking off the paint (while cleaning up adjacent thread crests), and partly because once you've cleaned up distorted threads, you see how much material is really missing.
But the results here are acceptable. Towards the bottom of the keyway you can see how the blunted threads cleaned up, and the same with the chipped out threads up top. There's no restoring the crest of a thread, but the idea is to make it so a new aluminum headset doesn't get mangled by the old threads. With the far right, I was able to spin on an old headset upper cup w/ no extra force, no snags. (Kind of expected, since removing material implies a looser fit.)
I'm waiting on a new headset in the mail. Those Tange/IRD units with roller bearings in the lower are a real solution to 1" forks always wearing out the lower cup. Both the cartridge kind, and the 'loose cylinders in a cage' kind. The only headset I have in the bin is one of those with the orange cages, but it has an odd stack height (>40mm). I've never known that kind to work when retrofit onto an old road fork (old canti touring/mtb forks are usually ok).
I also faced the bb shell. Not with the proper tool, just used a 12" smooth mill file. But I can't post pics because that would be my 3rd post about 'filing stuff' in this thread today.
