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Unpopular opinion: roller burnishing headset cups in a frame is not the fix, and a $12 race remover saved me at the Louisville swap
I used to think a loose headset always meant the cups were rocking in the frame, so I would grab the burnishing tool and go to town on it. Then at the Louisville bike swap in March I watched a guy wreck a nice steel touring frame doing exactly that, and the head tube ended up ovaled so bad the new cups wobbled worse than the old ones. What actually fixed it was popping the cups, cleaning the bores with a $12 remover and a wire brush, then pressing in fresh cups with Loctite 609 on a cool morning. The head tube is not the problem most of the time, the cup seating surface is, and trying to swage it at home just hides the wear for a few rides. I have done 30 or 40 of these since and not one came back loose. Has anyone else seen a frame ruined by over-burnishing, and what do you use to check the bore before you press?
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