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Re: spitfire bottom end rebuild

To: terry@firespitter.com
Subject: Re: spitfire bottom end rebuild
From: doug@dougbraun.com
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 14:42:32 -0500
Ok, I did not realize that "Glacier" was a trade name.  I
have not heard of it before.

BTW,  I have a set of bearings in a box labeled "King"
and "Made in Israel", but the bearings themselves are stamped "County".
Does this sound legit?

Doug

At 11:23 AM 3/25/2004 -0800, you wrote:
>When is a bearing not a bearing?
>AE, Federal Mogul and Glacier are all owned, I BELIEVE
>by Dana corp (the same people that build off-road
>differentials).
>For the main bearings the problem is that Dana who
>manufactured the same sized bearings in boxes marked
>AE, FM, Glacier AND for a short time (just to confuse
>you) Vandervell. 
>According to the rumor, the Dana made VPs are in
>Vandervell boxes (so you think you're buying good
>VP2s), but when you open the box up, the shells have
>AE on them instead of the styalized "VP" and
>vandervell model #.
>
>The real problem is that Dana builds bearings that
>have a very hard surface that are meant to wear well
>on very close tolerance engines. Spitfires are not
>close tolerance engines. The cranks flex madly. 
>Also, because dana bearings are very hard, they aren't
>as "embeddable". Pieces of metal dust and other
>contaminants which get into your engine will become
>embedded in soft metal caps of Vandervells. 
>
>On harder bearings, this crap in your engine won't
>embed in the bearing metal, it will stick to the
>bearing and ride on it's surface, eventually scoring
>the crap out of your crank.
>As an illustration imagine dropping an M&M on a
>frosted cupcake. A small amount of pressure causes the
>M&M to recess into the frosting. Drop another M&M on
>top of a fruit cake (yuck!) and see how much effort it
>takes to embedd it.
>Can you tell I'm hungry?
>After a few bearing changes with Dana sub brands, you
>will soon realize that your crankshaft gets mysterious
>deep scratches on the crankshaft which requires
>regrinds and thus larger and larger oversized
>bearings.
>-Terry 





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