hey everyone and welcome back to another Tuesday tip where in this video I'm gonna be showing you
guys how to install an integrated headset on your BMX bike I know there's a lot of you out
there who already know how to do this but there are some people who need to learn how to do this
this video is for those people so let's not talk anymore let's just get into showing you how to do
it so these are all of the pieces that make up an integrated headset for a BMX bike it might appear
simple and it might sound simple but there's a piece in here that makes this thing up it can be
a little bit confusing and if you get it wrong you're going to have to take it apart and put
it back together correctly so let's show you how to do this correctly from the start first of all
this is the orientation that it goes on your bike and it's the orientation that it usually comes
in the box so we've got a bearing on the bottom you've got a bearing above that and then you can
see that it's got this little assembly with this black cap on here but there's actually something
else inside there and that's this little spacer silver thing I don't exactly know what it's called
but that goes into this bearing then the cap goes on and usually it will come with a headset spacer
now this is an integrated headset there are also headsets that have cups that press into the frame
and they can have cups that press in and they're unsealed bearings or they can have cups that press
in that except these exact bearings today we're talking about integrated ed sets and integrated
headsets alone now that you're familiar with all of the bits and pieces that make up an
integrated headset let's go into this one with the mindset that we need to take out our old
headset to install a new one so for all of you out there who just need to know how to install a
new headset into a frame for the very first time ever just skip a little bit forward in the video
because we're gonna be covering that shortly but first let's talk about taking this apart the first
thing that we need to do is loosen the pinch bolts on our stem there's two of them one on each side
usually all you got to do is loosen them enough to get the stem off you don't have to take them
all the way out once we loosen these up because I have a gyro I need to disconnect the lower cables
so we can take all of this off at once the way I do that is just by taking a smaller allen wrench
putting it behind the cable pushing it out pulling the gyro up so we'll do that on the other side as
well not quite as easy left-handed now that that's out of there we can loosen our compression cap on
our fork when you do this keep in mind that if your stem isn't tightly pinched onto your steer
tube your fork can just fall out because there's nothing holding it there and the same goes for
your stem just falling off when you take your Forks out so you need to keep a hold of both of
them at the same time so we're gonna loosen our compression cap hoping to keep it all together
here set that aside let our Forks drop out as you can see we're gonna set those down and then we're
gonna pick up our gyro and hope that nothing falls out okay so we got everything off here we
can just set this aside and what we're left with is the top bearing assembly with the cap and the
headset spacer the bottom bearing is on the fork now we're ready to begin installing the bearings
into our frame and I wanted to show you guys first that these bearings are interchangeable and that
they're the exact same thing the only difference here is this silver piece I talked about earlier
which does make a difference and needs to go on top so as you can see this bearing can be placed
in the top or the other bearing can be placed in the top and the same goes for the bottom it just
presses into the frame on either side so what we need to keep in mind is that we put this silver
piece in the top bearing before we put our cap on but before we do any of this we need to make
sure that we put some grease in the frame where the bearings go anywhere where there's metal on
metal contact on your bike you're gonna want to put some grease you don't have to put a ton but
you just need some in there so I'm gonna grease this up with some Park Tool poly lube 1,000 and
make sure we get it nice and covered put it on the bottom as well always important to add grease when
necessary so now we've got the grease step out of the way we can begin installing these bearings for
final assembly after grease comes installation of the bearings we can do that by first grabbing one
of the bearings in this orientation here you can see that the tapered part of the bearing is facing
up and we're gonna grab our fork and we're going to slide it right on to the fork in that exact
orientation and as you can see here if you look close at this fork is that it's got an internal
bearing race built into the fork so this means that we don't need the headset race that comes
with an integrated headset when it is new you need to double check whether or not you need
that race or whether or not it's built into your fork most Forks these days have them built in so
you're probably not going to need it but if you do you need to take it to the bike shop to have
them install that bearing race I cannot stress that enough because it takes a special tool and
whenever you do it at home yourself it's so hard to get on there you can oftentimes mess the thing
up and have it not be perfect and then your bars aren't going to turn smoothly because your bearing
race isn't allowing your bearing to turn smoothly so with that being said we've got the bearing onto
the fork all we need to do is slide it up into the frame into our pre-greased bearing cup from
here we can grab our other bearing pieces I'm just going to grab the other bearing and we're
going to face this one in the opposite orientation with the tapered part facing down as it fits into
the frame so you can see here presses right into the frame just like that then we're going to grab
our silver piece that we've been talking about this entire video it goes on to the fork steer
tube and into the bearing then the next step is our cap that goes over everything that has
a little bit more pressure to it because of an o-ring and then we grab whatever headset spacers
you need in this case I only need one from here all we need to do is grab handlebars and our stem
and in this case I have a gyro and a gyro plate so the gyro plate goes on with the gyro before
the stem they just slide on just like that and then our stem goes back on top of the fork the
same way we took it off and now so everything doesn't fall apart I'm grabbing and dropping
my headset compression cap so once we get this on here and we start it we don't have to worry
about anything falling apart and it is really very simple the most important part really is
just making sure that that little silver piece I've talked so extensively about is oriented
correctly within the top bearing underneath the headset cap so with that being said if you don't
have it oriented correctly you're gonna have to take it apart to get it right because it
only goes in there one way and this only works one way so with that being said once you have
it all put together correctly all we need to do to finish the job is tighten our compression cap
on our fork to make sure our headset is tight then align our front end as far as bars stem
front wheel and forks go then we can tighten our pinch bolts on our stem and if we have a
gyro we can reconnect the cables to the gyro and we should be on our bikes and ready to go
so with that being said I want to thank you guys for watching I hope that you learned something
from this or it cleared up any confusion you might have had if not let me know your questions in the
comments down below and if you're new here or you haven't yet consider hitting the subscribe
button down there while you're at it I want to thank you again for being here and watching and
hopefully you'll subscribe so that we'll see you tomorrow for another video thank you and goodbye