Wrong part on Catrike.

I have some time to kill today so a 2nd post, this is another Catrike issue. The assembly of the right, as seated, spindle headset at the top. The right dust cover, part number 7 page 10 of Catrike owners manual, is missing the rubber boot that performs the function of keeping dust out of the Teflon bearing PN 6 page 10. The left side has the rubber. My guess is the right one is from Gen 1 (Catrike issue they sent the wrong one) and the assembler didn't pay attention and missed it when doing the build(Mt Airy Issue). Both Catrike and Mt Airy were very responsive when made aware and received the proper part in the mail few days later. Before discovery we had already put some mile on the trike so the teflon bearing has gotten some grim in it. The top cap is torqued to 10 in-lbs so the top surface has a load. I cleaned the bearing off but it probably should have been replaced. With the low load I’d willing to let it go and see what happens over the long run but there is another issue with this top bearing.

This top bearing issues and that it has a loose fit to the shaft that the steering lever is attached to. The symptom is that when stopping at the very last moment there is a small thump felt as the braking fore is unloaded when the trike stops.  My guess is the long term result will be the bearing is pounded out of round and the movement will increase. I’ve sent an email to Catrike,  but this being Sunday and it’s a larger company I don’t expect a response until tomorrow.