Bearings for 250ES steering stem

[OKSTATE#1]

Have any of you ever changed these out from the balls to a regular roller bearing? Just wondering if anyone thinks it matters. Just painted my triple tree for my 86 and started thinking about those old ball bearings, wish I would have gotten the old race off of the stem before I painted lol. Will this come off easy or is it going to be a little trailprotrailprotrailprotrailprotrailpro? Contemplating leaving things as they are....but the damn seal below the race is toast so of course I need to remove the race to change that. Ugh.

[Stonewall]

All Balls makes a replacement in the form of tapered bearings. I put a set in a Big Red once, the biggest advantage I see from it is that you don't have to keep up with all those damn balls. The kit comes with new seals too, which is nice. The race on the stem I replaced came off pretty easily with a couple screwdrivers, but it could be different with yours. Kinda a crap shoot on that one.

[Flyingw]

Personally I don't see an advantage to the All Balls bearings. If you have the right number of bearings, lay them in to a quality grease, and put the right tension on them you'll never have a problem. Remember, they just go back and forth. Not like they are spinning at a high rate of speed. If anybody needs any OEM steering bearings, I have hundreds of them.

[OKSTATE#1]

See, that's what I was thinking. It's not like it's a wheel bearing so it should be all good. I may just replace that seal and roll with it....pardon the pun lol.