The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline Front wheel bearing upgrade

Ive got a 54 1/2 ton chevy and it needs wheel bearings. Does anyone have the tapered bearing and seal numbers? My local auto parts store all have these young guys working there and none of them know how to use a book to cross reference numbers.if its not on a computer screen they are lost. Thanks for the help

Call Timken at 330-438-3000. Still Made in America!

You could ask the young boys at the counter to let you look in the books. They would probably be happy to leave you to it. Then you could show them "how its done".

Pass the knowledge on.

Kurt

don't blame it on the young'uns, you won't find any cross reference for a direct, exact match of roller bearings for the ball bearings, even at a dedicated bearing supplier .... and I don't think there's any "Made in America" with close enough dimensions

check out these: Inner - MBS #909052R .... Outer - MBS #909001R [or MBS #909067R] ... seal might be National #6064 ... search for roller bearing discussions, these are some of the numbers that have been discussed before here a number of times, the fractional dimensions are not an exact match, but supposedly "they work" .... that said, roller bearings are not an "upgrade", they are a modification that you can hope will work as well as the original roller bearings and that are needed if changing to disc brakes

Bill

The roller berings might not be that much of an upgrade. I have burned through 3 sets of them, 3 hubs, and 3 spindles on my 1/2 ton. All in less than 40,000 total miles. I use to get over 80,000 on the ball bearings. I do have disc brakes and 31X10.5 tires on my truck, so maybe its the oversized radials chewing them up.

Something else to consider, virtually ALL modern vehicles, with very few exeptions (E series Ford vans come to mind) use ball bearings in the front, and many also have them in the rear on fwds. These have been used pretty much since the mid '80s, I've seen them go 150k+ miles in many cases, and these are sealed non-serviciable bearings. Just think how far the servicable type will go, especially considering advances made in the lubricants.

I got all new roller bearings in the front of my 46 1/2 ton from chevsofthe40s.com

Bigbadswingdaddy

Could your installation methods be the cause of your premature wear? How tight are you making the castle nut? What king and how often do you pack your bearings?

Also perhaps the geometry of your disc/spindle setup could be an issue??

I hand tighten the castle nut while spinning the hub and tapping it with a mallot. When the hub becomes tight to spin, I back the nut off and check for end play. I haven't had a chance to repack the bearings because most have failed within 10,000 miles. Yes, my methods can be flawed.

There is a possibility my spindles and/or hubs were a little worn to begin with. If a race spins in the hub or spindle and goes unnoticed, it could wipe the good part out. I spun a few bearings on the driver side hub. After spinning the 2nd one, I took a good look at the spindle and saw evidence of wear on the spindle. I replaced the axle assembly with another used one. I examined everthing for wear, and used new bearings. 8000 miles later the bearings were worn, one hub was destroyed, and both inner bearings had spun on the spindles.

daddy - as I pointed out above, the roller assemblies are not an exact match on dimensions:
inner roller = bore:32.550mm/outer d.:72.260mm/outer race width:19.00mm
inner ball = bore: 31.760mm/ outer d.: 65.1256mm/ width: 19.2786mm
.... add a silly millimeter of wear anyplace and double the mismatch, which is why the parts houses and bearing suppliers can't give us a cross reference, there is no direct replacement - someone went to a lot of trouble to find the closest match they could because they wanted to sell something .... maybe if you had a good mic to check all the pieces you could use some shim stock someplace

additionally, re your big tires, a buddy of mine has wider rims and fatter radials on his 55 with the stock bearings and brakes - he's fried bearings and broken spindles because of those tires that exert stress forces the spindle design wasn't engineered for

Bill