Arvo Aj et al...
Well...I wasn't expecting that
As I made mention of on a previous thread, some years back, 2000 in fact I recall being told by someone who was working at Honda MPE at the time that during the delay of releasing the 1300's in Oz (questions in Europe / UK with handling), he'd changed steering head bearings with tapered rollers, so I presumed that Honda had continued with that. I was obviously wrong
Interestingly, this was the top race on the top (non-load) bearing. So I'll go out on a bit of a limb here and suggest that the probable cause was excessive play perhaps caused it to 'hammer' and fail!?!? If so what condition of the 3 remaining ball races?
Does begs the question doesn't it...what time duration / distance traveled do Honda recommend for periodical steering head stem checks for the 13's??? For the 11's it's at 1,000km and every 12,000km thereafter.
And have others had there steering head stem re-tensioned?
If others have their machine is routinely OEM Serviced you'd immediately know as you would have been charged for a new tab washer, as it's replacement is called for each and every time the head stem tension is checked / re-tensioned.
Cheers, Dick :)