I would respectfully take the opposite tack here. Installing and deinstalling headsets is fun, satisfying and relatively easy, and I find my lbs doesn't do as careful a job as I do. I've worked on quite a few using the DIY toolset - threaded rebar, big washers, wingnuts, screwdriver, hammer (yowch!), but recently bought a set of headset tools (thanks, BC!) and plan to get serious from here on in.
There is nothing more frustrating than staring at that newly acquired frameset sitting in the corner, being eager to build it up - tonite! - and not being able to start because you can't tackle installing the headset. Any of you non-wrench types know what I mean? -Dan Borden
At 8:06 PM -0500 11/19/01, Steve Freides wrote:
>You can do it yourself but why bother? I bought the fancy Park tools to
>do this and have used them a few times (and, yes, I know you can do it
>without the fancy tools) but they do this all day long at the LBS so I
>prefer to let them do it for me most of the time, the exception being a
>beater bike on which I'm trying to spend no money.
>
>-S-
>
>dave wrote:
>>
>> hello,
>>
>> thinking about installing a 105 quality headset in place of original.
>> current one is installed on a newly acquired bike found in ebay's
>> archives. the bike is supposed to be a Gitane but so far i've found
>> nothing on the bike identifying it as such
>>
>> head sets seem to be more complicated than most of the other
>> mechanicals. according to my reading at least two 'races' must be
>> removed prior to installation of new. race removal/installation
>> tools are not part of my inventory (yet).
>>
>> so the question (s): would this be better left to the bikeshop? or
>> is it possible to do yourself given some mechanical skill? if
>> possible for one to safely attempt which tools would be advised? how
>> does one determine 'stack height'? how may different thread types,
>> that is italian, english, french and so on, be id-ed?
>>
>> hope someone might spare some time for this,
>>
>> thanks,
>>
>> dave dickerson, austin, tx
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