How to / DIY > Engines

Replacing expensive old imperial bearings

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ajaffa1:
Hi Guys, a while back I posted about an issue I was having with finding vintage Timken tapper bearings for an early 1950`s Cooper petrol engine. The bearings were available if I was prepared to cough up $350 each plus delivery and taxes. Rather than dump this nice vintage engine I decided to modify the crank shaft and housings to accept modern metric size tapper bearings. A lot of searching on bearing manufacturers web sites and a lot of phone calls to my local bearing supplier and I found NTN 32210 bearings would be an adequate replacement.

The outer diameter of these bearings is about 1.5 mm larger than the original, while the internal diameter is about 10 mm larger than the crankshaft, the width of the bearing is about 2 mm less than the original, a big issue with adjusting the end float! The load rating and life expectancy of the 32210 is a little lower than the originals but since one of the originals was still serviceable after 60 plus years I will have to live another fifty years to wear them out, not very likely but I live in hope!

The two housings have been in the lathe and bored out to take the 90 mm cup,  I have turned up two bushes to to enlarge the crank shaft from 1 9/16" to 50 mm, these have a 2 mm flange to allow for the difference in bearing width. This allowed me to cut gaskets to bring the end float back within tolerance.

I have posted some pictures, hope this will help someone in the same situation.

Bob

dieselspanner:
A dozen or so years back I was working out of Atyrau, in Kazakhstan one of the lads managed to get a 70's Jaguar down there, when the front wheel bearings gave out a local machinist, Starry Sacha, set too in the same way and had Lada bearings in it in a couple of hours.

He did a similar conversion to the pintle bearing on a Scania truck a few weeks later, sure the quality wasn't there but give the price and more so, the availability, it's a pretty standard operation out there.

Cheers
Stef   

ajaffa1:
Hi Stef, a Jaguar in Kazakhstan? They must be paying you guys too much.  :laugh:

I doubt the Jaguar bearing seals were ever intended to operate in that sort of environment, no wonder the bearings failed.

Bob

cobbadog:
Nice work on the upgraded bearings ajaffa!.
This was a brilliant way of over coming the differences in OD, ID and width, well done mate !
I had a similar issue with front wheel bearings on our David Brown 30C Cropmaster. I dropped the bearings on the counter at our bearing shop and the owner walked passed and said get that David Brown crap out of here, but with a smile on his face. My problem was not the sizes of the bearings but the originals used a different taper angle. So he put replacement bearings on the counter that have a different angle on the taper and it saved me a heap.
They work perfectly well and do the job.

ajaffa1:
Hey Cobbadog, I did a lot of work on a David Brown tractor recently and one thing I know is that they are not crap! A neighbor of mine got this tractor for free, the previous owner had a problem with it and had taken off the cylinder head in a field. He then decided it was too much trouble to repair it and left it there for ten years, pistons full of water and etc. We had to hone the cylinders and fit new piston rings, we fired it up about 7 weeks back and she ran sweet as, blows a lot of smoke but that will settle down with a bit of work under a heavy load.

Bearings come in so many different configurations it is always a good idea to consult your local supplier, very unusual to baffle him with something he has not seen before.

Bob

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