Failing transmission roller/needle bearings

[Fast31]

I am rebuilding my gearbox and ordered the 3 roller/needle bearings. I got one long and one short one as designed by Ford; the rollers are super smooth as you expect from needle bearings. They have smaller diameter ends that ride in holes in the cage. The cages are ground to a certain diameter. These bearing did not come in a bag and do not have a print to identify them.

The other short roller/needle bearing came in a bag from Snyder which says "Made in China". The needles are really rough, they feel more like a nail-file than bearing needle! Also, the cage seem to have dimples or pins that hold the hollow tipped rollers. The cage rings are thinner than the other bearings cages. It looks and feels really flimsy and the surface roughness of the needles alone makes it unusable as a bearing.

Bearing on the left is based on Henry's design, bearing on the right is the poor Chinese design from Snyder's.

I remember reading a thread about this, but I can't find it anymore.

Are there guys (or gals) out here with experience on this subject?
Where can I order decent roller/needle bearings?

I need good quality parts because it's for a daily driver that does long distance trips.

[Tom Endy]

This subject has been reported before on this forum. These poor quality bearings will fail in short order. This had me concerned as I rebuild transmissions for a restoration shop. I checked my inventory that I get from Bratton's and found they were the same as I always received. I spoke with Walt Bratton to see if he had any information as to why these poor quality bearings are on the market. He was not aware of it. He said he has been using the same supplier for years.


A fellow club member rebuilt his transmission about three years ago and it recently became noisy. When he disassembled it he found these same poor quality bearings had come apart. He had obtained them from the same source as reported in the post above.


This should be a concern to anyone considering rebuilding a transmission. Be careful of the bearings you install. A transmission is not a fun thing to remove from a Model A.


Tom Endy

[Fast31]

This subject has been reported before on this forum. These poor quality bearings will fail in short order. This had me concerned as I rebuild transmissions for a restoration shop. I checked my inventory that I get from Bratton's and found they were the same as I always received. I spoke with Walt Bratton to see if he had any information as to why these poor quality bearings are on the market. He was not aware of it. He said he has been using the same supplier for years.

Tom, I checked the Bratton's website today and it shows the Chinese design bearing I got from Snyder's: the cage with the small diameter dimples with the hollow rollers.

[Lawrie]

They are a problem on the v8 also,same goes for the 34/34 rear end bearings.
Lawrie

[Russ/40]

When I disassembled a rear end recently to get the hubs, both the rear hub bearings were held together with dimples. They were Ford bearings.

[Benson]

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Originally Posted by Fast31

I am rebuilding my gearbox and ordered the 3 roller/needle bearings. I got one long and one short one as designed by Ford; the rollers are super smooth as you expect from needle bearings. They have smaller diameter ends that ride in holes in the cage. The cages are ground to a certain diameter. These bearing did not come in a bag and do not have a print to identify them.

The other short roller/needle bearing came in a bag from Snyder which says "Made in China". The needles are really rough, they feel more like a nail-file than bearing needle! Also, the cage seem to have dimples or pins that hold the hollow tipped rollers. The cage rings are thinner than the other bearings cages. It looks and feels really flimsy and the surface roughness of the needles alone makes it unusable as a bearing.

Bearing on the left is based on Henry's design, bearing on the right is the poor Chinese design from Snyder's.

I remember reading a thread about this, but I can't find it anymore.

Are there guys (or gals) out here with experience on this subject?
Where can I order decent roller/needle bearings?

I need good quality parts because it's for a daily driver that does long distance trips.

Is it possible to get a closeup photo of these needles showing the details?

[Benson]

Originally Posted by Russ/40

When I disassembled a rear end recently to get the hubs, both the rear hub bearings were held together with dimples. They were Ford bearings.

Maybe the problem is in the quality of the steel used and not so much with the design of using the ("dimples" and hollow needles) or solid needles?

I built a transmission more than 10 years ago that one needle bearing inside cluster gear came apart and was making very loud noises.

As I remember the needles on these bearing were of the other design ... that is needles were solid steel and were held in place with the holes in the end plates instead of the dimples.

The pins on the surviving bearing's needles, in this case were worn to a sharp point and end plate holes were worn oversized.

[Benson]

As I mentioned above when my bearing failed

1. it was quiet at first and got noisey after some miles. At first noise was not too bad but got worse as time went on.

2. Maybe if I had taken it apart when noise first started and replaced the bearings I might have been able to save the Brand new MARK cluster and 2nd gear slider.

3. As it was I waited too long and by then the 2nd gear slider and matching gear on cluster were badly pitted (maybe damaged would be better description).

4. Note the bearing that failed in cluster was the bearing that supports the end where 2nd gear "lives" so that end of cluster was "flopping around".

[Benson]

Originally Posted by Russ/40

When I disassembled a rear end recently to get the hubs, both the rear hub bearings were held together with dimples. They were Ford bearings.

Russ,

Had these FORD bearings failed in the Model A hubs?

[jm29henry]

Can you buy timken bearings I have had good luck with them

[Russ/40]

Originally Posted by Benson

Russ,

Had these FORD bearings failed in the Model A hubs?

No, they looked pretty good. Some slight sign of surface breakdown at the edge of a few rollers. All the bearings I have seen with wear, start to break down at the edge of the rollers.
They can run a long time like that it seems before they damage the hubs. The ones I recently dealt with, I have no knowledge of how long they were in service. They were very old though, as they came off a rear end that had not seen service for eons, and the grease was like a rock.

Actually these were found in a 39 rear end. Same bearing though.

[john in illinois]

I always get used Ford rear hub bearings in my A and V8. These bearings have the dimpled end plates.

I had Bensons problem with Hub bearings with pins. They filled hubs with ground metal after 3,000 miles.

In transmission I try to find NOS Ford caged roller bearings. I can get them for V8. For model A good used.

I think almost all repro straight roller caged bearings have the soft endplate problem.

John