Morning crew,

I bought one of these headsets the other day after being linked from another site.

https://www.edgesportsuk.com/store/components/specialized-bikes-replacement-headset-bearings.html

Now, the OD and the ID seem correct. But i’m struggling to see the H being right, compared to what i have fitted already anyway.

According to the digital verniers, my H on the fitted bearing is 7.1mm and the H on these is closer to 8mm.

When i fit the plastic/rubber top cap, i have a bit of ‘space’ as the cap is fairly flat.

On my G-160 the surrounding cap above headset has a rubber ring, which i’m assuming is basically acting as a cover and compresses to seal it, but the specialized isn’t quite as rubbery/fitting.

Sadly the lettering on the bearing that’s on the bike has completely worn off, so i can’t really get anything off it, but if you look you can hopefully see what i mean.

Fitted headset.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jXR4au]2020-10-22_09-37-35[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

New headset
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jXR4PR]2020-10-22_09-38-38[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Headset comparison
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jXVASt]2020-10-22_09-38-49[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

So it could be i’m making something out of nothing here and it’s simply the dust cover, then we’re all good. I can steal one off another bike for now and use that.

But just wanted to run it by you guys first as you know more about this stuff than i do.

edit: all of the searches i find show the headset as H:8 which is what was sent, so i’m hoping/guessing i’m just reading more into it than i need to.

Cheers.

Hope he is still liking it, that second photo doesn’t look right to me. I’ve double checked every bike in the garage, all have the same headsets and none are sitting proud like that.

These are who we use for replacement bearings.

https://trailvision.co.uk/collections/blueseal-headset-bearings/products/specialized-enduro-headset-bearings

The numbers are in the drawings at the bottom, I know that TH870E and TH073E fit in ours and non stick out like your photo

Looks like the new bearing you have bought is not the correct bearing for the frame, or you have some ‘debris’ in the headset cup that is preventing the new bearing from sitting correctly.

I would be ringing Edgesport up and checking the number on yours is right for the bike. I would ask them to confirm the number is compatible with TH870E
It needs to be a campy fit, their link on ebay gives MH-P08F and not H like on your photo. I wouldn’t run it like that.

Hope he is still liking it, that second photo doesn’t look right to me. I’ve double checked every bike in the garage, all have the same headsets and none are sitting proud like that.

These are who we use for replacement bearings.

https://trailvision.co.uk/collections/blueseal-headset-bearings/products/specialized-enduro-headset-bearings

The numbers are in the drawings at the bottom, I know that TH870E and TH073E fit in ours and non stick out like your photo

So, I took it to lbs and he thinks it’s fine but fitted a smaller stack top crown race which makes it look right. He feels the bearings are correct, just an aesthetic issue more than anything else.

I’ve also ordered the bearings you linked to just in case. As well as emailing Edgesports. So all bases are covered.

He’s loving it thank you. Having a blast. Hopefully he’ll be jumping the hell out of it Sat but he’s down with some lurgy at the moment so not sure.

Glad he is. The top crown race is a Specialized fitted one, did yo get it back from the bike shop for if you need it when the new bearings arrive.
It doesn’t look aesthetic to me and looking at all our others, you may be lucky and have the new ones before the weekend. If it was me I would stick the old one back in until I was sure. As the bearing sits direct onto the carbon its a risk unless you are 100% certain.

Tracey’s correct, the top cap on the Enduro should be flush, and shouldn’t be replaced. It’s the wrong bearing if it doesn’t fit.

I’ve used trailvision’s sets before and they just drop in, no worries, and everything goes back without any gaps.

The bearing you’ve fitted is a TH870E (Campy style bearing), so good for the upper, at least you’ll have a spare now as these things go quite regularly!

If its the right bearing it should not be sticking out as proud as that so something doesn’t look right

If it was me I would stick the old one back in until I was sure. As the bearing sits direct onto the carbon its a risk unless you are 100% certain.

LOL i’m lost now… So yeah i’ll fit the old one (Have to go and collect it) for now until the other one you linked earlier arrives, we can never have too many bearings after all 🙂

You have the wrong bearing, you need this one, your original top cap and compression ring…
This one

Maybe a better LBS as well!

Right, so… here’s the standard headset as supplied.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jXYJnG]2020-10-22_03-25-53[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jXYJhb]2020-10-22_03-25-47[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Now there’s no way in the world that’s flush… and no way in the world it can go in any other way, at all. It’ completely in the recess

This is it with the crown/compression/whatever ring
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jXV5mp]2020-10-22_03-25-42[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

This is the ‘new’ headset and lower stack crown/compression/whatever
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jXYJ3D]2020-10-22_03-25-32[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

I don’t see what i’m missing here, but none of them are ever going to be flush no matter what i do

I guess you will need to reassemble with the fork and stem using all the original parts, cleaned and greased (especially the inner face of the bearing and outer of the compression ring). The compression ring should close up (compress if you will!) and thus sit lower in the bearing, which I can see is the lipped type.

If that works then you know which bearing to buy, if it doesn’t then there is an error in the assembly.

As I side note I have a Stumpy that uses the same bearings BUT has a flush fit top cap so the bearing sits a bit lower, your top cap doesn’t look to be a flush fit one.

When i fit a top cap/dust cover, it all looks lovely. No issues at all that i can see with it….

I can’t see any way that bearing is going to sit lower, it’s as far in as it’s getting.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jXWcX4]2020-10-22_04-35-16[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Taking my Parkwood apart, the headset sits above the frame too.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jXZVM3]2020-10-22_04-38-29[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

As the bearing sits direct onto the carbon

Using a metal tapping implement, i’m sure my headstock is alu ?

steel4real
Free Member
You have the wrong bearing, you need this one, your original top cap and compression ring…
This one

Maybe a better LBS as well!

That’s the same as he’s bought, a TH870E, from what he’s given in the picture response it all appears to be right, the top cover appears to cover the bearing and allows it to do the job, i.e. preload the bearings prior to tightening the stem bolts, unless i’m missing something?

Looking at the original picture again, they actually look the same size, the 8mm is from the top to the start of the chamfer, not overall, the old bearing looks like it would be a shallower fit in the frame, but the flat edge looks about the same.

Without stripping a bike to get pics with the cap off I cant say.
What I can say is that I’ve just rechecked every Stumpy, Enduro and Levo in the garage that has the Blue Seal bearing in from Trail Vision and they all look the same with very little, if any, gap. The Levo pic has the original Specialized bearing fitted. They all have the standard Specialized top cap bearing cover fitted.
I have taken the pics below of a couple of them and also zoomed in best I can on the Enduro photo and they all confirm what is should look like.
The gap in your first posting just dosent look right. Have you had anything back from the Suppliers yet.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jXVASt]2020-10-22_09-38-49[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

The inner race on the old bearing looks like it sits a lot lower than on the new one.

All your pics look like the top covers are 1mm or 2mm high, so preloading the bearing into the recess, Steve’s FSA is about 4mm, also looks like the cover is a snug fit to the frame in the built up pic, so would guess the top of that cover is what preloads on the bearing.

I think we’re agreed that the first bearing is potentially too tall… but i’ll be most curious to see what the postman brings from your supplier as H:8 implies a height of 8mm, which is what the bearing from Edgesport actually is… However, i can’t see anything that shows a H:7 which is what the one fitted seems to be.

No matter what though, unless the height was 5 then it’s not going to fit flush in the recess.

All your pics look like the top covers are 1mm or 2mm high, so preloading the bearing into the recess, Steve’s FSA is about 4mm, also looks like the cover is a snug fit to the frame in the built up pic, so would guess the top of that cover is what preloads on the bearing.

The bike did come with a flatter one.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jY1F7L]2020-10-22_04-31-32[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Which is what i’ve refitted today, but that’s basically just a piece of plastic, a dust cover for want of a better phrase, i can’t see how that can preload something correctly ?

The Enduro came with the Specialized top cap as have all our others. They are all of the same design and all work as they should.
The gap in the top pic looks wrong to me, why its like that after swapping out a bearing I don’t know. My suggestion was to put it back as it was, bearing, top cap crown race thing and original top cap cover and then work back from that. Thats what I would do to find out whats not right.

The gap in the top pic looks wrong to me, why its like that after swapping out a bearing I don’t know. My suggestion was to put it back as it was, bearing, top cap crown race thing and original top cap cover and then work back from that. Thats what I would do to find out whats not right.

I have 🙂 See the previous post to yours 🙂

Starting to look like new bike time!

These are the bits you should have.

https://www.cyclestore.co.uk/specialized_enduro_stumpjumper_headset-ID_76775?sv_source=google&sv_medium=cpc&sv_campaign=%5Bcampaign_name%5D&sv_term=%5Bkeyword%5D&gclid=Cj0KCQjw28T8BRDbARIsAEOMBczEG7hMxVBPH48P2uCEp_aB7aQusebzxLHPBWX3o4eHTCq7pRzJzs8aAijFEALw_wcB

Disregard the bottom two bits and you should have a bearing, top cap, top cap crown race and top cap washer.
The preload on them and the bottom bearing should come from the tightening of the star nut. It also looks like all the spacers have been removed but that shouldn’t alter much. However I would stick the spacers back in to eliminate that.

If you go back to this then the gap should then be the same as before

Incoming… small boys bike, Specialized enduro S-Works.

I deffo didn’t/don’t have the washer.

The spacer is up top but still present

Its usually stuck to the underside of the top cap with grease. If you arnt carefully or didn’t know it was there or more usually the bike shop didn’t know it there’s a good chance its fell off some where when its dismantled or its still stuck on with grease.

When you put everything back together as it was has the gap closed back to where it was.

When you put everything back together as it was has the gap closed back to where it was

Yeah.

So if the only difference is the new bearing and top crown race then it points to one or both not been right.
All my spare bearings are in the camper, not at home, or I would have posted one down so you would have had one for tomorrow.

I didn’t realise that the pads fitted were finned and the spares I gave you were not for the finned type. So they will be fatter and if fitted with finned backs won’t work. If you need any of the race matrix for that which fit the fins let me know and I will send some down.

It’s got the standard crown race on top, so we’re pretty sure the bearing is the issue.
Honestly you’ve done plenty don’t worry about bearing sending or pads, we’re both happy.
The bearing works, I just wanted a new one, which I’ll have soon enough.

OK keep us up to date with the rides.

We are now stuck with riding in South Yorkshire from Sunday. Will need to get back to riding local for the foreseeable future

He’s down with lurgy so no riding for him at the moment. I’ll be out though

Looking on the full headset link, that dust cap spacer is one of these.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FSA-Integrated-Headset-Micro-Spacer-10-pack-1-1-8in-x-0-25mm-MW0006-Silver/143742270915?hash=item2177b4fdc3:g:jZEAAOSwLGRfY4gZ

Sadly, i only really need one of the sods, not 10 lol. The search continues, or i’m buying a pack of 10.

Ah well, can never have too many random bits… bought 10 of them.

The new bearing in your picture is MH-P08H8, (8mm height) you can get a 7, 7.7 or 6.3 as well.

Just make sure you know if you need a 45/45 or 36/45

https://www.kineticbikebearings.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=p08

Thank yiu

The link Tracey provided pointed to the TH870E being the required bearing, this is the 8mm height bearing, TH873E is 6.5mm high, but does not appear to be listed for the 2016 enduro headset, so i would be wary of fitting something that may cause issues with being preloaded as required.

It might be worth putting some more detailed pics of the frame headtube without a bearing inside to see if there is an issue, as all info on the normal sites point to the bearing you bought being the correct bearing, so that 45 degree chamfer should fit neatly into a similar chamfer in the head tube, leaving 8mm or so of space for the rest of the bearing to snuggly fit into.

Would be good to have a look at this, it’s a weird one, might be worth getting a bike shop (or another one) to have a quick look, maybe even depth gauge the height sans the chamfer in the frame.

Honestly, the frame is clean as a whistle inside. THere’s no dirt, no mess, nothing protruding

I won’t be fitting anything i’m not 100% happy with, hence how all this started 🙂

I think i’ve got a total of 3 other top bearings arriving in the next day or 3 now, so we’ll see what comes, how it looks and how it fits. I don’t need the bike this weekend, so can just crack on and check and test stuff.

The link Tracey provided pointed to the TH870E being the required bearing, this is the 8mm height bearing

That’s the main confusing part… because the bearing that’s fitted is NOT 8mm in height, it’s just not, my calipers have that as 7.1mm.

But as i say, we’ll see what comes in the post and compare stuff.

Angle/height of internal race meaning the wedge won’t sit right.

Angle/height of internal race meaning the wedge won’t sit right.

Sorry ?

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jXUK3s]2020-10-22_09-40-08[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

If we look at the old and the new, we can see that the angle of 45 and the length of that appears the same…. It’s the vertical height that’s different from there. Along with the internal height.

So today i’ve got a bearing from Kinetic along with the set from Trailvision hopefully on their way. I’ll then get the measurements and see where we are.

Don’t forget, this isn’t urgent. The bearings in there still fit as they did and work as they should 🙂 I just wanted new bearings, but the bike is perfectly usable 🙂

Ah, you’ll find the best fit, the other might be a TH873E, so 6.5mm height, https://www.wychbearings.co.uk/ACB4545-1125.html, this one is also an angular contact bearing, so should work a little better for headset upper bearing.