On Thu, 5 Sep 2002, Don Malling wrote:
>
> Wow -- now you really have a newbie worried.
The point was not to make you worry. The point was to make you more
diligent.
> What is a good source for thrust washers for my TR250?
Most of the thrust washers that I have bought in the last couple of years
are fine. So buy them from TRF or Moss or whomever. Note that Clevite
lists bearings for TR6 too. My local NAPA guy can get Clevite if I so
desire.
There _was_ a batch of AE Glacier t.w.'s a few years ago that were soft. I
have not heard about that problem for quite a while.
> How can I tell if they are plated steel or "solid bearing material"
> (Sorry don't even know what the correct material is).
Well... all the new bearings are aluminium clad steel shells. The best
bearings in the old days were "tri-metal" with steel, copper and something
softer (I can't recall what it was, but some sort of "rare earth" metal,
maybe vandium.) Vandervell was one of the tri-metal bearings, Clevite 77
was another.
As far as I can tell, except for a few sources and in certain dimensions
(like .010 and .020 under) the Vandervells are pretty hard to find. I'll
discuss that in a second... The only source that I know of in the USofA
that has tri-metal Vandervells in quantity is APT Performance. These will
cost you basically twice what the regular Al-clad bearings cost (figure
about $160 for mains and rods for the Vandervells.) I'm sure that some of
the "specialists" probably have a set or two that they'll seel for the
right price.
Now, the reason that the bearings are hard to find is that a lot of people
read that when AE Glacier bought out Vandervell (or whoever bought who,
it's sort of hard to keep score), they dropped the tri-metal process for
the aluminium thing. Everybody panicked and bought out all the available
stock from TRF and Moss and so forth. This was only a few years ago, SO
there are Vandervells out there... you just have to convince one of your
friends to part with them.
Regarding Clevite 77 bearings, I talked to a fellow recently who sources
engine bearings from Clevite, and he seems to think that even the 77's are
simple aluminium clad now - e.g. NOT tri-metal. I'm going to buy some and
check them out, but my expectation is that the tri-metal bearing is a
thing of the past. They must cost too much to produce (meaning the profit
margin is too small to justify the additional product line).
Call this an unintended benefit of cost cutting measures.
The comment about not knowing what's in the box is related to my having
purchased some bearings 5 or 6 years ago that were delivered in one box
(AE Glacier, I think) the packaging said AE (I think) but the bearing
shells were stamped with the Vandevell mark. The funny thing was that the
bearings were _not_ tri-metal. Go figure.
Bottom line - buy your parts and then check them. It's as simple as that.
If you don't trust the parts, the "checking" operation should include post
procedure follow up (like checking the crank end-float periodically).
Additional comment - I've been running the al-clad bearing in both of my
cars for a while (at least 5 years and lots of miles), and the bearing
journals on the cranks have been no worse for the wear. The new bearings
work okay, they're just not the same as what we used to get.
> Don
regards,
rml
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