I have a 1500 FP Spitfire.
The previous owner was running second in the run offs when he broke (not the
engine) in the 80s. He did lots of testing to figure out how to make the
bottom end of this engine live. He said "don't use the aluminum bearings".
The clearances in the 1500 engine are critical to its life. The aluminum
expands differently than the tri-metal. They will do, if nothing else is
available, but you will need to change them often.
I found this to be true when I put in what I thought was a tri-metal thrust
washer (coated) and found two things to occur. 1) the drained oil had a
different sheen, which I thought nothing of at the time. 2) the end float
increased more rapidly than it had with the previous thrust washer which was
tri-metal.
Counter to this is that Rick Cline told me he used aluminum bearings in his
engines and did not have any problems. (I did not discuss clearances or life
expectancy with him).
Matt
> From: "MARK J WEATHERS" <markjwea@email.msn.com>
> Reply-To: "MARK J WEATHERS" <markjwea@email.msn.com>
> Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 04:57:07 -0700
> To: "riverside" <riverside@Cedar-Rapids.net>, "fot" <fot@autox.team.net>
> Subject: Re: king bearings
>
> Amici, I am trying to get my head around all the bearing discussions so I
> can order a set for my TR6 but I have a few questions.
>
> Let me see if I have the story straight:
>
> 1. Cast lead matrix bearings are better for racing application than sintered
> aluminum, but hard to find.
> 2. Cast lead, tri-metal and lead bronze essentially are the same animal,
> main difference is that they do not use aluminum as the matrix.
> 3. Vandervall are the preferred choice, but not sure if they are available,
> John Kipping do you know if Heritage stilll supplies?
> 4. King makes bearings, of which some are heavy duty applications. John K
> recommends KIng heavy duty. TRF supplies King, not sure if they are regular
> or heavy duty. Art D, did you ever find out if King has the heavy duty
> version for TRs?
> 5. There may be a heavy duty Glacier or Vandervall for MGB or Metro Turbo(?)
> that would fit. I talked to Bob Yarwood, who Babcock said may have a supply
> of TR Vandervall equivalents, he had none for TR6 and recommended using MGB
> (gag). He said they were slightly wider but the only mod required was
> grinding a new place for the locating tab. I assume this is the same
> approach as John K mentioned.
> 6. Clevite 77 bearings are trimetal, but only aluminum ones are made for
> TRs.
>
> Can anyone shed light on this?
>
> Thanks
> Mark
> 72 TR6
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "riverside" <riverside@Cedar-Rapids.net>
> To: "fot" <fot@autox.team.net>
> Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 4:10 PM
> Subject: king bearings
>
>
>> I have had some more time plowing thru the king baearing book and need
>> to amend my previous posting. They have 5 series of bearings and the only
>> ones supplied for TR's is the AM series which is the alecular material
> over
>> steel.
>> pics of those bearings show a copper colored finish. I will send them an
>> inquiry
>> as to how the AM series differs from the HP (competition) series. From
> one of
>> the
>> brochures, the HP's have some features that are supposed to please the
>> machinist
>> saving the thrust surface on an old crank, but there is bound to be more
> to
>> the story.
>>
>> art d
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