Steering stem bearings

Since I'm waiting for powder coating to come back + put the wheels on + paint and seal the tank, I figured I'd take advantage of a fairly bare frame and check out the steering head bearings.

Now this bike really wasn't in too bad of shape, but it is 46 years old, so I wasn't sure what to expect

After freeing the top triple clamp and dropping the forks, and dropping the lower bearings all over the garage floor, things were looking pretty bleak, but not damaged... Confirmed by the state of the upper bearings

 

Dried grease, or a lack thereof, and alot of bare metal, but after a good cleaning both the ball bearings and races looked to be in fine shape. Cleaned, repacked them and reassembled, but ordered a box of new 4mm bearings for the next regrease. The manual says these need a repack every 10K miles and come that time I'll re-inspect and probably just replace them all. Really makes you appreciate the fact that BMW used timken roller bearings.

Speaking of which, I planned on repacking those next winter, this PM got me wondering what state I'll find those in