[pat in Santa Cruz]

I recently went through roller bearing failure for the third time. It seems they last 30,000+ to 40,000 miles, which means removing the transmission every 30K just to replace them, hopefully pre-emptively. That's a lot of work for a $10 bearing. These were the type with an axle that seats in a hole, not the dimpled type which fail in 300 miles. Nevertheless, even these repros only last apparently 30K miles, unlike original Ford bearings which usually outlast some engine components. In the past I've seen these thin, flimsy cages fail and get wrapped around the rollers. This time three rollers came out of the short bearing cage when the tips wore off, and the spacer wore into the cage of the long bearing, releasing three of the rollers in that one. Then one or more of them ground up the cluster shaft (a new repro) which gives me pause about the correct Rockwell hardness of these repro shafts. When the cluster dropped down, it unevenly ground the teeth on the drive gear, ruining it and a recently bought MARK cluster gear. Not an inexpensive repair nor is it the easiest job on a Model A. Meanwhile, I rebuilt the transmission with some beautiful original Ford rollers I happened to find in a gearbox I disassembled to send off to Mitchell for conversion to syncro. It sure would be nice to be able to buy reliable gears made to original specs. I would pay quite a bit more for a well made bearing to avoid costs like this every 30K miles.