Chris King Headset Upgrade
By Sheepdog

 Do you own a Chris King headset? Like me, you probably love the simplicity, lack of maintenance, and how good it looks. You also probably hate the feel. I am not sure if King designed it the way they did for the sake of superior design, or for the sake of avoiding other patents and royalties. In any case, there is a fix. This will show how to make it perform more like a normal style headset. Making it feel more solid. My personal King has had this setup for well over a year, and I know of and, have converted a few others in that time. 

At the end is also a part on how to make the King headset/stem cap fit onto S&M and other forks.

Warning: King does not recommend this mod and you will void your warranty. Read this.

Quote from Chris King:
"As you know, King Products have been specially designed to exact specifications. All King products are manufactured to perform properly with the original parts as designed. A headset is a complex precision tool with parts that must relate correctly to other parts in order for proper and safe operation. It is critical to make sure the parts are installed correctly and that neither the replacements nor originals are altered or changed.

There are no user adjustable or serviceable parts inside the headset. Modification of any of the individual parts in a King product will change how forces between the parts of the product are distributed and will likely result in an unexpected mechanical failure or at best, a significant reduction of fatigue life of the product. Servicing should be performed only at the factory, or by a technician trained in headsets. ANY MODIFICATION OF THIS PRODUCT BY AN UNAUTHORIZED PERSON CAN BE DANGEROUS. Putting a headset together wrong or with incorrect or modified parts can result in a damaged headset, mechanical failure or malfunction of the product, danger, and injury or death through malfunction.The warranty statement included with every King Product expressly states that any modification of the product will void the warranty. Adjusting or dismantling your headset may create dangerous conditions and unauthorized modifications will void the product warranty.

King hereby disclaim's any responsibility for any failure or damages you may cause or have caused due to improper assembly, modification of parts based on your instructions."

To request the full email, click here.

Second warning...
Performing this mod is done so at your own risk. BG is not responsible for any injury from attempting this. If you have fears, you should not try this.

Read this whole guide before you start, as it may require you to purchase a part before you can complete it.

Tools and parts required and optional:
Required:
Headset wedge.. Must fit into the headset. More info is in the how-to. 
Optional:
File
and/or
sandpaper and some glass
Drill bit

On to the mod..

Its pretty simple if you understand the King headset. Basically King uses an O-ring to hold the headset from moving around on the fork. What we are going to do, is change the O-rings job, from holding the whole headset, to holding the cap only, and put in a standard headset wedge from another headset.

Lets take a look:

In this picture you can see the original O-ring inside the headset cap. This is the bane of your troubles. Excuse the grinded off pieces.. Works fine for MTB's and road bikes. On BMX bikes though, it moves a bit too much for most people.

The Wedge:

This headset wedge is from a Sealed Pig. It is possibly the best one you can use for your King. Many King owners have an old one lying around, as they tried to use one of these headsets instead of a King, and found it to be a pile of.. Well, you know.. 

Some other wedges will work. A word of warning.. The King uses an extremely small contact area, a plastic wedge will disintegrate. It will work for a while though.

Ask your local shop if they have a spare parts collection, or try a few from the headsets in stock. Also ask your buddies. 

The easiest way on this mod, it to simply use this instead of the King cap.. Some of us however prefer things a little more complex.

Full blown mod..

In these pictures you can see the original O-ring inside the red headset cap. You can also see how the black one is missing its cone. The red one is partially milled off, as its mid-way through modification.

You need to be sure to get this totally flat. A Flat file will work. A better way is to grind it rather close, and then use a piece of sandpaper on a sheet of glass. The glass is perfectly flat, by using the sandpaper, you can get it flush and flat like the black one is.

The Wedge..

Here is the fun part.. As above, you need a wedge. If you use a sealed Pig wedge, You will notice mine is a tad different. The normal one has a small little section on top of it.

Kinda like this. The green represents the original top. If you grind off the vertical section on the sealed Pig wedge, to the point where it angles, the ground top cap will sit down just like it did before you ever touched it. In other words, no one will know you did anything to it while looking at your bike.

Here is how it looks compared to stock. At this point, just re-install as you would expect. (yes, I know the one is in process)

The cap...

No King headset install is complete without the King headset/stem cap. If you took the time to do the full mod above, you probably will want this as well.  On many forks, it will simply bolt on. However with S&M Pitchforks, this is not possible. Well just have to fix that.

The bolt and black cap is from a Pitchfork. The green cap is from a  King and is un-modified. The red one has been drilled out. The hole you need for Pitch is a bit larger than the recess in the stock King. Double check your size before you drill.. When done, the bolt head sits entirely above the King. Don't worry about it grinding into it The red one is my personal one, and has been removed and re-installed many times, and shows no wear. Many headsets ship with a plastic cap, so its obviously a low stress part. You would probably not be able to turn the bars easily if you crank down hard enough for the bolt to dig into the cap.

 Also see the guide for adapting Gyro's to work with it. That is posted here.