Stelvio steering head bearings

[Xlratr]

Last November I took off the swing arm on the Stelvio to grease the bearings. They were really quite dry at 22tkm and I was glad I did it. I thought it might me a good idea to check the steering head bearings and grease those too so I did that this morning. But it wasn't actually all that bad, at least better than the swing arm was. Seems they have a different guy at the factory doing the front! 
This is what it looked like before I applied some more grease.

[pete roper]

That is generally what I've found too. I went in and did my steering head bearings at 50,000kms and they were, surprisingly, OK. They benefitted from some extra but both balls and races were fine. When they do eventually fail the sniff test I'll go to tapered rollers but at close to 100,000km they seem to be holding up fine.

Pete

[leafman60]

Last November I took off the swing arm on the Stelvio to grease the bearings. They were really quite dry at 22tkm and I was glad I did it. I thought it might me a good idea to check the steering head bearings and grease those too so I did that this morning. But it wasn't actually all that bad, at least better than the swing arm was. Seems they have a different guy at the factory doing the front! 
This is what it looked like before I applied some more grease.

Thanks, John.

Looks good.

Your experience gives me additional latitude to maintain my self-imposed optimism about this issue! I've dreaded the job of checking by head bearings on the Stelvio.

[Xlratr]

Thanks David. That's why I posted it, because I was also concerned about them and it turned out they were fine. But the job itself was really straight forward. I think 30 minutes after starting I was putting grease on the bearings and getting ready to put it back together. I was surprised how little time it took.
I found it helpful to tie a rope around the mirrors and over a hook in the roof, so when I undid the handlebars I just raised them on a slip knot and they were out of the way. You will also need a special tool for the castleated nut.

[canuck750]

I had no idea Guzzi was using ball and races for steering heads, I would  have tough that tapered rolling bearings would have been the norm by now. Is there any benefit to use ball bearings rather than tapered bearings?

[BMCMOTO]

I would guess the need for less accurate machining of the stem and head lowers the cost.  Ball bearings are far more forgiving of misalignment issues.

Brian

[WitchCityGuzzi]

I've had to tighten mine (09) a few times and they've been hammered pretty well. I'm replacing them with the All Ballz bearing while I'm doing the Andreani fork cartridges and springs and the Ohlins rear shock.

It was all due for replacement at 67,000 miles. Pretty good run IMHO.