Filing off steerer for keyed washer

Hi guys,

I've just bought a brand new 1" threaded fork for a new project.
After installing it, I noticed that the steerer didn't have a vertical filing to fit the keyed washer in between the lock nut and the top race.

My not so brilliant idea was to instead of filing of the steerer to fit the washer, to file off the key of the washer. The problem is that now I can't ride for 3 minutes without the headset getting seriously loose.

My plan now is to buy a new keyed washer, to file the steerer and to pray that the sudden and constant loosing and play in the headset was caused by this.

My question is, how do you do it to file a path off the steerer? Have you guys done it before?
By hand and using a normal file is what comes to mind, but I'd really like to avoid fucking up twice in the same area...

Cheers!
Eric

The problem isn't the washer: I've used plenty of threaded headsets without a tab/key/slot etc.

You have a thin wrench for the adjustable race?

Nope! I also thought about this, but my logic was, without washer and proper tightening, it gets loose in 10min. Without washer and with proper tightening, it will get loose in 1 hour. At the end the vibrations on the fork will get transmitted to the headset and race, and there's nothing to prevent it from turning... What do you think?

I've filed the key off the washer a few times in the past and not had any issues so long as that lock nut gets locked off nice and tight.

What do you think?

I think you're wrong. I'm currently using a headset with about 30mm of untabbed spacers between the top race and the locknut and it's not given me the tiniest bit of trouble. Some people recommend filing the tab off the washer because, if it turns and jams in the fork threads, it then can't move up and down and it stops the race and locknut tensioning against each other properly.

Filing a slot into the fork would be horribly difficult and likely weaken the fork. Buy or borrow a proper thin spanner for the adjustable race (you can't do this job without one), use a big adjustable spanner for the locknut. Put the tiniest smear of grease on the fork threads, but make sure the mating surfaces of the race, washer and locknut are clean. Then tighten them up against each other, hard!

What's the headset? I had a VO headset that never wanted to stay put; turns out it was because it was a piece of shit (go figure).

Dunno, came with the Gazelle track frame. Seemed fixed with the old fork, but of course I never ride it with that configuration.

I'll give it a try following FFM advice, and otherwise I'll buy a new headset, for 20-30€ I can get my hands on a brand new set and hopefully wave goodbye to the issue...

After a service/rebuild, even with the keyed washer one of my headsets was coming loose after too many turns and bumps in the road. With my headset two parts screw onto the fork at the top, the race/housing that covers the bearings and then the nut. So I made sure the first was secure but not overly tightened, then locked down the second. Hasn't come loose at all so far.

What about a bit of loctite?

Alternative to loctite, use a bit of electrical insulation tape. That's worked for me in the past

Where would you put it @pdlouche?

What's up with loctite, you can still always still unscrew it with a spanner, it's not glue.

I appreciate loctite isn't permanent, but I didn't have any to hand when I had this kind of problem, and found tape worked fine.

A thin strip stretched around the helical/screwthread. As the nut bites into the plastic it pushes out any excess and if you use it on only one or two threads, it will bite hard only as it reaches the bottom anyway. The stuff is a fraction of a mm thick. Bear in mind it was wrapped fairly tight to avoid bunching as the nut was tightened down.

If you need to apply loctite, tape, etc to steerer threads in order to keep your headset tight then either your tightening technique ain't up to scratch or the threads on something are on their way out.

The fork is new, what about grease in the steerer? Might have overdone it?

How are the threads on the headset parts? I like steel headsets as you can horse them up without worrying (too much) about stripping any threads. Less mechanical sympathy needed than with Ali cups/lockring.