Working with crown races
There are three headset bearing surfaces that sit on the bike. Two are on the frame itself, and these are the top and bottom cups. They're pressed into the top and bottom of the frame's head tube, and that process is or will be explained in our description of the headset press.
The other bearing surface is the crown race, which sits on the fork crown. A bearing will sit in between the crown race and the bottom cup on the frame. Another bearing will sit in between the top race, that sits on top of the head tube, and the top cup. Your fork will rotate around these two bearings. That's how your fork works.
When you're installing a new headset into a "not-new" frame, you've got to take the old headset out. This means de-installing the top and bottom cups, and also the crown race.
There are plenty of people who will think I'm a pussy for having the tool I have, and to them I say, you're just jealous. The historical way to remove a crown race is to turn your fork upside down, and lock the steerer inside your bench vice. Then you take a U-shaped hunk of metal made for the job, and you place it with the points of the U facing downward, resting on the edges of the crown race. The other part of this tool is you shop hammer, which you wield with—hopefully—great and accurate aim. Down comes the hammer, in between the fork blades (these being the blades on your $375 carbon fork) and with the precisely correct hit off comes the crown race.
Enter the crown race removal tool by J.A. Stein. The one I have (pictured above and at right) has a pair of adjustable lips, which you slide over the crown race and tighten down with a 5mm Allen wrench. Those flange-like things at the bottom of the photo, one just over the other, are part of a slide hammer. In other words, you've got to bang this crown race off. This tool has the banger built in. No more hammer wielding.
Look, perhaps I am a wimp. But these new carbon forks have thick crowns and legs, and sometimes there's not a lot of room to fit the hammer. Asking me to hammer without hitting the fork blades is sort of like asking me to shoot an arrow through the apple sitting on top of somebody's head. I don't want the responsibility. What if I sneeze?
This tool will cost you between $100 and $160, depending on where and how you buy it (see the related article below on tools every shop should have).
Okay, that's how you get the old crown race off. Now you've got to put the new one on. It's a no-brainer. You've got to press it on, like you press in the headset cups. But to term this operation "press" might be a tad antiseptic. You bang the thing on.
You want to make sure that you don't mess up your crown race surface in the process. Enter Park Tool's system (pictured just above and at right), which has the—well, the banger-onner, the hammer, the whatever you call it—and a bunch of different fittings, one of which will fit over or onto your crown race nicely.
I've got to be honest with you, I look at all these fittings and I can't tell you which is which. Obviously some are for one-inch headsets, others for inch-and-an-eighth, and so on. When I have to install a crown race I just try different fittings until I find one that isn't going to mess up the bearing surface.
This set should set you back between $40 and $70.
