The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline Frt wheel bearing for 1950 gmc 150

Does anyone know if there is a replacement tapered bearing set for the front axle on the 3/4 ton pickups. I can find for 1/2 ton. Am new to site and couldn't find anything while looking at other forums.any suggestions would be great. Trying to decide if to stay original or change chassis.

A web search turned up a number of choices available (none of these are mine) for the 1950 GMC 150 model front outer wheel bearings (majority of info indicates these are same as the Chevy 3600 bearings):

LMC Truck Part# 34-0501

Classicparts Part# 73-051

Rock Auto has multiple front outer bearings listed under several manufacturer names. Centric Part# 41162012E is listed as standard "ball bearing" style replacement outer bearing set (need 2 if you are replacing both sides).

NOTE: Before checking the other replacement bearings listed on rockauto.com, recommend you closely measure your existing bearings and races as the dimensions on the replacement bearings listed differ from one brand or part number to another.

Good luck and let us know how your search comes out!

Old Soldier 50 is asking for tapered bearings. Classic Parts 73-051 and LMC 34-0501 are both ball bearings.

Thanks for the correction Bill.

Other than the 1st “standard” bearing set I saw listed on rock auto.com, at least some of the other “replacement” bearing sets were listed as roller bearings.

Maybe still of some help???

When I looked at RockAuto I found no 3/4 ton specific bearings. Some were 1/2 ton, some didn't say. I could not find a 3/4 ton (3600) specific bearing set.

Bill,

I used the 1950 GMC 150 make/model selection to do my search in RockAuto instead of the Chevy 3600.

However, after much rechecking this morning of RockAuto (as well as a number of other web search's using the original part numbers in hopes of finding a "cross-over" to a tapered roller bearing) I must acknowledge defeat. I even tried to do a search using the "B45" listed dimensions and completely struck out.

From what i could find, there appears to be no such animal as a suitable "outer" front axle roller bearing for the 3/4ton GMC (or Chevy 3600) applications that i could locate.

My humblest apologies to "old soldier 50" (and anyone else) for any possible hope bubbles being burst or unintentional misleading info.

Thanks for the correction sir!

Given that my old truck is a GMC 150, I should have thought of that.

Chevs of the 40s has the barring you want but they are expensive. It will run about $500.

Outer 909025R
Outer
Inter 909026R
inter

Jim,

That's a great find! Thanks for sharing!

I did try and search that vendor, but for whatever reason I couldn't "see" these listed???

NOTE: I clicked on the individual links you posted. Prices listed $71.75 each for outer and $167.50 each for inner, so replacing both side inner and outer will definitely hit close to the $500 when you include shipping.

https://mechanidrive.com
Has both in stock for less
However the quality might not be great, they also appear to be ball type, nothing wrong with that style, but if you only want roller type then there aren’t many options

I would rather reuse an oem ball bearing from a wrecking yard.
-s

My father used 3/4 ton pickups in his business in the 1950's. With the old stringy wheel bearing grease, I never remember a failure. But we repacked them regularly. With today's grease the old ball bearings would outlast several owners. There is nothing wrong with ball ball bearings. I am 79 years old. I have never understood why people want to drive a 70 year old pickup, but are afraid of the bearings that were engineered over 80 years ago. I have been running semis for over 58 years. 50 years ago we had a lot of failures because the grease wasn't very good. Today with the same bearings we have almost no failures since we started semi fluid synthetic grease about 25 years.

you might get lucky if your town is large enough to have a specific bearing shop who can mic your bearing and race and cross reference through their books then check to see if they are available anywhere. I did this with my '37 and outer tapered bearings are available but he couldnt find inner ones.
My original ball bearings were New Departure (ND) which apparently has been out of business for years.

Mine in my 150 are still rolling great and i drive mine A LOT. Had many people suggest to me that i “should” fix problems that don’t exist….. like swap to disc brakes and “upgrade” to tapered bearings. Well all my stock parts still have a 100% success rate….. so im not sure how I could upgrade.

Tapered bearings for 3600 or any pre-59 GM truck are unobtainable. I have a set of tapered bearings made by MBS out of Japan. Unfortunately they aren't made anymore. A tsunami followed by a nuclear meltdown put a cramp in their manufacturing. To be honest, they didn't fit that well to begin with. The outer were ok, but the inner needed some massage work. I had to emery clothe the Dickens out of the spindle to get them to fit. Then the seal. It rides on the inner barrel of the bearing, well I had to use machine bushings for clearance so it didn't tear up the seal.

So, in conclusion, the oe style ball bearings are more than adequate. The 3600, 3800, and 4100 trucks use the same bearings, so they 're plenty stout.