I've had years of faultless service from a couple of Cane Creek S2 headsets on my bike so I thought I was doing the obvious thing in buying and fitting an S3 unit to my new frame.

The problem is that as soon as I apply even a tidy amount of preload the bearings bind and sound rough and gritty. With my old S2 units you could crank the preload up massively and never experience any binding. I'm stuck as I don't know what to try next. I have heard of issues with S3s before but I thought that the blame had been leveled at cheap counterfeit units, this one's a retail product from CRC.

something not straight then

What do you mean? The cups are properly pressed and the crown race is correctly seated, what else should I be looking for?

Mine was a retail product from CRC, and it was a counterfeit.
This was a year or two ago, I contacted cane creek and I think there was 2 things different, the code on the bearings, and a missing spacer / washer thingy.
The missing part means you can't get an appropriate tightness without pretty much locking it and the cheap bearings arent sealed and will rust much quicker than the genuine ones.

I think you can find a pdf of the exploded headset somewhere on t'web, this should show you that you have a part missing.

I sent mine back to CRC and they changed it, with an apology and no questions. Seems a little worrying if the counterfeits are still around 2 yrs later??!!

Only time ive ever had a problem like this is when cups havent been in straight.

Bent steerer tube maybe? Are all the bearings and seals seated correctly?

Well it all looks fine to the eye. The cups are seated correctly, as is the crown race, and everything appears to be in place, the bearings feel smooth outside of the headset and I can't quite work out what's rubbing/binding where. The head tube isn't faced but there aren't on the other 2 frames I've had S2s on either and they've been fine. I'll keep playing and see how I go.

I'd rather not have to know out the cups for a new headset.

I didnt get any instructions with mine, and when i found a piccy on the internet – clicky part number 4 "shim seal" was missing.

just check that everyting is in -in the right order – and right way round. always worth checking!

No, I've got one of those and it's in the right place. I'm not sure if I should just ride and see if it loosens up (I guess that the worst I'm going to do is knacker the bearings) or knock the cups out and send the whole lot back. Perhaps I do need the headtube faced.

Now here's the rub (literally), I've worked out what's going on. The neck of the cups appears to be slightly thicker than in the S2 unit. The steerer tube just at the point where it widens to accept the crown race appears to be rubbing the neck of the cups where it passes them; There's a thin coating of silver (it's a silver headset) on the steerer tube at this point. It rubs off and there's no scoring of the steerer. I'm not quite sure what this means, is it counterfeit or just a tolerance thing and is it safe to ride until it wears out? I guess I could sand the cups down a shade.

Yes, on further investigation it does seem to be that, the steering tube does appear to be rubbing a small area of the neck of the headset cup. A small amount of preload causes it to occur, but no amount of extra preload worstens it. So it's not actually the bearings binding at all (although that's what it felt like). Oddly, if I turn the forks 180 degrees (so the stem's pointing down the downtube) there appears to be a bit of a sticking point, things seem to have loosened up with the stem pointing forward. There doesn't seem to be any scoring to the steerer in this area, just a slight silver film which rubs straight of. It kind of suggest that something is out somewhat, either the cup or the steerer tube but the fork (Rebas) has come straight off a frame where it was fitted to an S2 onto this one with an S3, I put the S3 crown race on even though it looks identical to the S2 one fitted.

I'm inclined to think that it's rideable and will probably wear out but I will get in touch with Cane Creek. I don't like the idea of knocking the cups out and sending the whole thing back (with delays) just to find that another S3 will do the same as it's my fork steerer.

The cups are fully pressed but I suppose that it is possible for the headtube to be a bit wonky, like I said it's not been faced, but neither have my other bikes.

Sorry, I'm going to bump this up in case anyone else has any thoughts. I can't pinpoint what's wrong (frame, headset, steerer) I've contacted Cane Creek and I'll wait to hear from them but can I wait for this to 'wear out' or should I ditch the headset?

If you think thats whats rubbing to be 100% sure put some lipstick or similar on it on one point, slide the forks in, rotate them, slide them out and see where the lipstick has moved too…

It would prove 100% whats rubbing where…

David.

Not sure this will help but I had the same problem with some Menja forks and a Diatech headset, the bottom cup was just a touch to small so the steerer tube would rub against it when fully preloaded. I took a dremel to the lower cup in the end. Not something I would recommend doing though.
New headset should sort that out.

I'm pretty sure I know where it's rubbing as there's a small, finger nail sized, dull spot in the otherwise shiny aluminium of the neck of the cup (it's just off centre at the rear of the cup). Everything looks ok apart from that and I can't make out if there's a high point in the cup or the steerer (or whether it deformed whilst pressing) or whether something else is wrong. The cups could be mis-aligned (although they're pressed correctly) but however far out they might be a can't see how that would result in the lower part of the steerer touching the lower cup. Everything was buttery smooth with plenty of pre-load with the same fork in another frame with an S2 setup.

I don't fancy Dremelling anything but I did wonder if a touch sandpaper might do the trick. Cane Creek have forwarded my email on to their headset engineer, so I'll see what happens there.

I've got/had a v similar problem where a the steerer on my SIDs was rubbing on the inside of the lower headset cup Cane Creek S6). It happened with 2 other headsets too (cane Creek S8 and a Chris King). I had the frame checked and it did not need facing (nor I have I ever had this problem before with previous fork/headset combos on the frame).

Oddly, the steerer does not rub on my other frame, so it seems to be a unique combo of steerer + frame #1 … which seems really odd to me.

I did try gently filing the headset cup a smidgeon which did help, but it needed more filing and I was pretty uneasy to do that.

Ended up having the forks on my other frame, which wasn't the intended plan 🙁

But if anyone can enlighten me as to why the steer rubs in one frame and not another, I'd be intrigued to find out.

PJay – I'd be interested to know your outcome

Cheers

Well I've had a rather complicated email from a Cane Creek engineer with lots of technical speak, the bottom line seems to be

Since it appears that the steerer is rubbing only the back of the insertion sleeve, and only under pre-load I think that the most likely cause is non-concentric head-tube bores and/or non-parallel head-tube faces. If this were the case then the fork would assemble normally and all would seem well when the parts were loose and had some wiggle room. But once some preload is applied, the steerer would center in each bearing and would be forced to rub.

The next step (rather than a solution) is to have the headtube faced and reamed which I suppose may or may not sort things out. If I knock the cups out, would they be reusable?

I'm no engineer but I still struggle to see how misaligned cups could angle things enough for a lower part of the steerer to touch the lower cup. I'll have a play though. I'm still toying with the idea of just sanding out the area where it rubs.

Well here's an update for the interested. Having the headtube faced has made a massive amount of difference. Previously even the slightest amount of pre-load made the headset tight and rough with a particularly bad sticking point when the stem was facing down the downtube. There was also a marked patch of wear (and deposit on the steerer) where the cup was rubbing against the steerer.

With the headtube faced (lots of thanks to the guys at Bike City in Wells) it's buttery smooth. It's amazing what a huge difference it has made despite looking fine to the eye before facing. I don't know whether tolerances are tighter with the S3 or whether I was just lucky with the old frame and S2 pressing it without facing. Maybe the Sirius frame just had a particularly rough headtube. Whatever the issue, fingers crossed, it seems fine now!