I could not believe the dumb design when I took apart my steering stem to grease the bearings. Somewhere in husky history they milled a slot in the steering stem for (I am guessing) a fork lock. New bike keep inheriting this stem and husky hasn't even bothered to mold a rubber plug to stop it with. The slot leaves a direct path for dirt and water into the steering head. Yikes!! My SMS630 has only 500km on it and there was a nice layer of dirt on on the bearing. I was pleased that Husky did put a decent amount of grease in there. Here is my fix: Used some larger heat shrink tubing to cover and seal the hole. A synthetic wine cork blocks off the steering stem hole nicely. Hammer it in and then cut off the part that wont go in.
Should be, unless you sink it up in a creek or something. I did the same thing with a couple rubber stopper plugs.
Almost, and would be a wise thing to do immediately. General ambient moisture and HP water could enter though the lower hole, plus the creek thing. Rubber stoppers were my first idea but the ones I had were too small and last nites empty wine bottle was sitting on my work bench. Perfect fit. I would have to re and re the heatshink to change the lower bearing but that won't be for awhile. I left the bottom hole empty to eliminate trapped condensation from rusting over time. Cam
you put some preserver in the tube first? like that hunk o killer heat shrink man! you a lineman? that's HD stuff!
Interseting if you have your gas overflow/breather routed in there ... would work wonders for the bearing!!
Yeah. Mines not a dirtbike so no overflow hose, but that was almost the first thing I though about. PV, no preserver as I left the bottom opening of the steering stem open. Cam.
Amazing how many people put their breather hose down their steering stem really destroys the bearing lube.
On most bikes it makes no difference as there is no open path to the bearings. Worse is actually the carb overflows that point at the linkage bearing seals. I am curious if this "feature" is on other Husky models (dirt bikes) as well or only the roadworthy types. Cam.
