Well sorry for the delay in replying, I've been a bit busy!
Anyway, I ordered a set of 'Allballs' head bearings from ebay for £20 delivered and set about stripping out the original races and fitting the new tapers.
I was concerned about keeping the front end supported so I put the bike on its mainstand and laid a plastic crate beneath the downpipes as the bike was front heavy.
Next was to remove the inner fairing panels, the calipers were unbolted and suspended on wires to prevent the hoses from being damaged, then I removed the front mudguard and wheel.
At this point the balance of the bike went neutral, I thought WTF? Then I removed the forks and the bike slumped on the rear wheel. The front end is really heavy!!
Next was to get the old bearings out so it was a simple task to undo the upper yoke nut and lift the top yoke clear and shove it forwards so I could get to the stem locknuts.
Once the locknuts were removed it was an easy job to lower the bottom yoke from the frame. At this point I found the bearings were perfect, well greased and not rusty.
Now I had to get the outer bearing shells removed from the frame. Yamaha have thought of this and provided two recesses for each shell so you can get a suitable tool in there to remove them, I used a heavy duty 14" screwdriver and they popped out without any trouble.
Fitting the new outer shells was also a doddle, using the old outers as drifts to get the new ones in using a hammer and a little care.
The lower race was a bit more of a problem. The original race was well stuck, after using a blowtorch it decided to move and with a little fettling (Hammer) it came off cleanly.
My Allballs kit was supplied with 2 seals, however the upper one was too small so I couldn't use it??? The original lower rubber seal was fine but would snag the taper inner so the Allballs one had to be used. After fitting the lower seal I used the old inner race to drift in the new inner taper to the bottom yoke.
Next was the upper race. This was surprisingly difficult and might be best done by releasing the Torx bolts holding the frame halves together, however I never had a suitable Torx bit so I repeated the same process as I did for the lower shell and it went in ok with a bit of effort.
I won't bore you all with the rest of the rebuild as it's pretty much 'bread and butter' stuff.
I booked my MOT and waited for the day to ride the bike. I hadn't test rode it as getting out of my rear garden is a pain and FZ6's are heavy so I didn't want to do my back in!!
Come the day of the MOT I had to negotiate several roundabouts en-route. Well what can I say? I nearly **** myself!! The taper bearings had completely changed the handling. No longer was it dull and uninteresting, it was a new riding experience. The turn in to corners was now very sharp, perhaps too sharp. The effort to corner had gone and I found myself having to countersteer away to prevent oversteering. This new found ease of handling has also resulted in less fatigue, since changing the head bearings I have done around 200 miles and every mile has been a dream, why Yamaha had to dumb down a bikes handling by fitting cheapo components is beyond me!
Anyway, the bike passed its MOT with flying colours. The knock I felt which was the original reason for this topic was the floating calipers, no cause for concern.
Finally, I was surprised to find my Allballs kit contained a bearing cover/seal which was of no use to me, plus the bearings were cheap chinese ones available from ebay for a couple of quid each. I'm not saying the bearings are inferior but they are certainly cheap to buy, the only advantage I got by buying the Allballs kit was the lower bearing seal, since the original Yamaha seal can't be used with a Tapered bearing.
Apologies for the long post but I feel it may have valuable information for anyone finding themselves in the same predicament :thumbup:
