The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline Roller Bearing upgrade in a task force

Hello all,


I am in the process of rebuilding my front end and came across roller bearing upgrade kits. Are the roller bearing upgrades worth the extra money. Will the improvement be noticeable?

Thanks in advance

Hy 59ApacheGail, I'm afraid the answers to your question will tend to be more opinion than fact. Properly adjusted ball bearings will and have lasted for thousands of miles in many different makes and sizes of vehicles. Some manufacturers still use them today. Personally I would not make the change just for change sake, but if you need to replace your bearings then it is decision time, hope that helps.

When I rebuilt my '55 3100 pickup, I was thrilled to find that CPP had a tapered roller bearing set for $95, which was complete for both front hubs including seals. After suffering with ball bearings in my '55 and '56 chevys and '59 Volkswagen, and finding that the left front outer bearing on my pickup had galled the spindle, after a PO had "fixed" it, I did not want anything to do with ball bearings. The price was right also. Just my 2 cents!

First, I will admit to doing the tapered conversion on mine, as I bought into all the hype about the original roller bearings "not holding up" under the stresses of radial tires and/or disk brakes. However, knowing what I know now, and many years of experience working with late model vehicles. I tend to agree with 3Bs statements. It might be worth it to mention that all modern cars, with only a few exceptions, use ball bearings, with most of them being a non adjustable sealed style bearing. They get 100k+ miles out of those without any means of adjustment, and with disk brakes and radial tires.

The stock roller ball isn't like the radial ball bearing in a rear axle its "angular contact thrust ball bearings" meaning that the roller contacts the race at an angle. These are designed to take high thrust load of cornering and weight.


I would think that a bias-ply tire would exert more side load on a wheel bearing due to the very stiff side walls they have on these larger trucks. Radials have a lot more flex on a corner.

As long as they are in good condition I don't see a need to change them. Taper bearings handle more load in a smaller package but we aren't increasing the load of the truck

Thanks for the info guys!
It sounds like I can spend the money better else where.