I wondering if anyone can help, I have a FSA no.57b headset (tapered) on my bike which has bearings in a cage, it’s not great and even less so now, whilst cleaning it an annoying child (my own!) lost some of the bearings from the cage.

Can you replace the loose bearings and cage with cartridge bearings? I suspect not but thought I would ask in case. If not does anyone know where to buy replacement bearings and correct sized cage from? As ideally like to keep going with the headset for a bit longer before replacing it.

Thanks

the caged bearings are probably a stock size.  I have bought them from halfords in the past

You probably can’t get cartridge bearings, the races that the loose balls run on are the wrong shape for cartridges to seat on. You don’t need the cage bit either, that’s just to make factory assembly faster. Get a bag of loose balls and bed them in grease when you put it back together.

As tjagain says, the cage is a standard size and you can buy from lots of places (inc eBay). Take the old one with you. Oh and make sure you put it in the right way round when installing.

Tricky to replace with a sealed bearing as the races for old bearing will still be in-situ (if that makes sense!)

Cool, thank you