I pulled the banjo out of my roadster. I drove it once and noticed some pretty loud howel on deceleration. What I know I think it’s a 40’ -The gearing has matched etching from ford that says 3.57 (I counted the teeth and it’s 3.54) the gear faces look really nice. - the spiders seem tight and everything spins as it should. - the preload seems to be off on the pinion. I have about 1/16” play at the bearings (allowing the pinion to walk in and out of the housing) some lateral movement too due to lack of preload. -I have about 3/8” movement. The entire carrier and axles can slide in and out towards and away from the pinion. Obviously the wrong bearings/ races and or wrong carrier? -the bearings in the carrier appear used but decent and the races look good as well. The carrier can move so far over to the left (drivers side) that I can see where the ring gear rubbed in the webbing of the bell. Thoughts?
Looks like you have early differential tapered roller bearings with late cups, in your photo the cup has been hot. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
Its hard to measure, bearing being captive and all, it looks like they're about .700ish x .315ish (the actual bearing). Give Mark a call at Van Pelt Sales, he's got the right stuff, proper seals etc.
Man, I went through this whole thing rebuilding my rear out of mismatched parts. Early bearings are way expensive. This thread has info on replacement bearings if you can get them local. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/banjo-rear-bearing-info-needed.184162/
the more i've read, it seems like everything appears to be v8 banjo EXCEPT for the carrier bearings and or races. my hope is that the P.O just replaced the original bearings with incorrect replacements.
I had a chance to get out to the garage. I pulled the bearings off the carrier and the part numbers appear correct and are stamped “Ford”. After I pulled the bearings, I dropped one of the carrier bearings into the race installed in the bells. The bearing sat very low into the race. The face of the race and the Bearing were flush. I’ve never seen a taper bearing sit so low into the race. The excessive side to side movement of the entire carrier led me to believe that the bearings were the wrong o.d. Or the races were wrong. (When I pulled it apart I was pretty shocked at how new the races looked). I’ve never seen someone replace just the race and not the bearing so that didn’t really add up for me. The bearings were marginal the rollers had some pitting so I will replace them. Thoughts on how low these bearings sit in the race? It seems wrong to me. I’d like to call up Mac at vanpelt sales in the morning and get an order of rebuild parts in the mail. Roadster weather goes quick! I need to get this back on the road!
I think that is actually a reasonable hypothesis as to what happened. I'm not sure of the history of the banjo, or how long you have had it, but someone looking to shortcut things might have decided to just replace the race. (maybe they didn't have press or puller to get the bearings off...?).
@cobra5laddict - I'll bet my lunch you have early bearings and late races. The earlier bearings and races are narrower from a side profile view, the later ones are wider, which actually helps mechanical longevity due to larger surface areas distributing the load, but that's a conversation for another day. Luckily you can get them for about 25 bucks. You currently (very likely) have a 18-4221 bearing in a 68-4221 bearing race. The 18-4221 bearing as seen here is .78" wide, you need the 68-4221 which is 1" wide.
Oh, and you can get them on the early ford parts sites, but it's probably cheaper just to get one at your local bearing supply house.
Also, and for what it's worth, my guess would be someone previously changed either the carrier or the entire center section on your rear using an earlier carrier/center. My stock '35 rear had the narrow bearings and races, but you could easily bolt on bells with wide races and not know the difference. Hell, it took me about a full weekend to figure out what was going on with mine when I was mucking around.
Boryca, Thanks for the expertise. the numbers on the carrier bearings are 18-4221 (stamped ford). I have not yet pulled the races out of the bells yet (scratching my head at how to do that with my limited tooling). Im curious what part numbers will be stamped on the races. although that won't really give me clear direction of what i need to order. The current races fit the bells very nice the recess to accept the race seems to have the correct depth. that leads me to believe that i have 37-48 bells. and i need the corresponding 37-48 bearing. (I will be replacing them as a set after i get it all mocked up) That tells me that i had 32-36 bearings on the carrier. (unknown races in the bells) The center housing is 3-13/16" wide so it must be a 35 and later. I'm trying to figure out what carrier bearings i need to order, 32-36 or 37-48? that got me thinking
I pulled the bearings from the carrier and the races from the bells. It turns out that the carrier bearings are early banjo 18-4221 original ford stamped. The races are newer banjo bearing size. The part number on the race is timken 25522. Obviously a mis-match. Here is what I know now. I have a v8 center housing (3-13/16” wide) 10 spline pinion 3.54 gears (original ford stamped and in great shape. 4 gear spider 18 tooth axles 32-3/4” overall length Bells I believe are 1940. The machined area to accept the races is .7535” deep The depth of the machined area on the carrier to accept the bearing is .90” deep and has a dia of 1.689 on both sides. No evidence to prove that a bearing has ever “spun” on the carrier so that’s good news. The carrier has a cast number of 4206 The million dollar question is..... what carrier bearings do I buy? Early or late? To me it makes sense to order later banjo as long as the I.d of both early and late are the same
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