I'm looking to replace my old bearings to a tapered bearing set. I run 49-54 Chevy spindles for the 5 lug conversion on my 47 Pontiac. Couple questions. Are 53-62 Corvette bearings the same? I've been told they are. Where is the best place to purchase them as a set? Are any of them actually good bearings and not China crap? And has anyone dealt with Allied Bearing Sales in LA? Been told they are some old guys dealing with nothing but bearings. I see some sets out there but I'm thinking most of them are offshore crap. Yes I know the old ball bearings work fine but I like to wind my hot rod up once in awhile(over 70 MPH) so just a piece of mind thing. Let me know what you guys are using. Thanks.
I'm like 100% sure the corvette is ball bearing also. Years ago I made a conversion for my 54 Chevy to convert it to rollers. It was all done with sleeves, No metal removed from spindles or hubs. Somewhere in the tech archives is the whole thing with dimentions and part numbers. I think since then there are conversion bearings made for the Corvette. They would fit your spindles and hubs. Nothing wrong with maintenance free roller bearings, it's the future!!!!
is this what you are looking for? http://www.ebay.com/itm/1947-1948-1...646143?hash=item2c6e278a7f:g:seoAAOSwfcVUJflm
Yes I did exactly what your taking about with the roller conversion. Chevs of the 40's sells a kit but it was over 200 bucks. But when you look at picture off the bearings on their website it shows the bearing numbers on the bearings. Which are the same numbers as the eBay kits, which is what I got for around 100 bucks. Mine have worked great and I have put about 4500 miles on them over the summer.
the inner bearing # is 909052R and the outer is 909067R. these are what's in the ebay ad. doesn't say who makes them though. they are also only 54 bucks with free shipping too.
That's the ones I have in mine. If you drop the r off the part number its the part number for the ball bearings for a vette. The r just designates its a roller version. The part numbers are different for the car bearings but the front hubs and spindles are the same part number for the car or gen 1 vette so the bearings for the vette fit in the early Chevy hubs. I tried to find name brand bearings in the roller version but couldn't find any. The ones I got looked very nice and have worked very well. Mine even came with seals.
I'm one of the guys who thinks that switching from old New Departure ball bearings to funky aftermarket tapered roller bearings on an old Chevy is a waste of time and money. Anyways...I got to work on a "late model" car, a 20 year old import with rear wheel drive. A front wheel bearing was howling, and I figured out why...someone had left the dust cap off it! so it was getting rusty and dirty. But the thing that surprised me was that it has ball bearings, not roller bearings. Apparently a lot of late models have gone back to ball bearings, in sealed lifetime hub units. i wonder if that might affect anyone's mind about the need for tapered wheel bearings?
Ball bearing takes radial force.. Roller bearing takes axial and radial force. My source of info is Air Force 43230 Jet Engine classes, That is why jet engines go Roller ball roller roller ball.not bad for a class I took over 50 years ago. But back to the subject years ago I convereted my 57 chevy circle track stock car to roller brgs because the ball brgs could not take my abuse. At that time kits were sold at local parts houses..How ever in 2016 and as slow as I drive my hot rod I would find a good used set of rollers and use them. Their has to be some around from all the Mustang II conversions.. Good Luck... Bobby..
Depends on the ball bearing, doesn't it? The ones that are used as wheel bearings in cars are designed to take axial load as well as radial load. btw three of my friends have recently had to replace spindles in their roller bearing equipped 40 year old cars, because the bearing went bad and wiped it out.
I had to saw off and replace one of the snouts on the 1-ton full-float axle of my rock rig, when the outer roller bearing destroyed it. Yes, it was properly torqued. Good thing it has disc brakes. It happened on the freeway. Charmed life.
The Jalopy Journal
