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dancing james
@Favori
I got a new Cannondale Synapse disc last Autumn. I've been having a problem with play in the headset which was persisting although I kept preloading it in the way I've been used to. I have to say that its the first bike I've owned with a full carbon fork, every other reasonably up to date machine I own has one of those star washer devices rather than the expanding wedge device in the Cannondale .To do things by the book I decided to buy a suitable torque wrench as up to now I've just owned the sort that operates in the cyclinder head bolt torque range. Last night I took the forks out cleaned everything up and put it back together, hopefully in the right order. The torque setting for the bearings is 6 nm and having now set this up with a torque wrench rather than guesswork I realise that 6nm feels massive for this situation, I would have expected the steering to be locked up pretty solid at this torque but everything feels smooth and fine. I assume this headset works differently and doesn't require preload and the torque setting is what's required to hold everything in place.
Another thing, the Cannondale intruction says that all spacers should be below the stem, non above so that the top cap and wedge assembly can support the clamping force of the stem around the fork. Mine came out of the shop with one spacer above the stem so I moved this below
Guessing lots of folk on here have experience with this sort of setup and can advise if it sounds like I've done things right.