Beware,chinese Bearings=broken Spindle

I thought it my duty to bring this to your attention, We built a chassis for an original 32 3 window ,I beam, Hairpins 9" rear etc pretty trad but with a disc brake kit & spindles from a reputable manufacturer (who are going to replace the broken parts) This is not a knock at a particular company . What I'm getting out there is there are more & more people using Chinese made bearings. I'd like to see everyone check their spindles so there isn't a repeat of this. On this car the bearings were packed with disc brake grease & correctly set , not too tight etc etc. The owner himself had packed them after 1000 miles & knows what he's doing. Car has done 3000 miles at the failure. Luckily no damage to the car & no one hurt. The owner is Totally cool but Please check & maybe think about getting Timken bearings made in anywhere else but China. As its the outer one that takes the abuse it's dead easy to check,re grease & change if necessary.

Cheers

 

china = crap = shame on us for putting ourselves in this situation as a country.

 

I recommend timkens. call your local bearing shop

 

budget is not the best way to go when it comes to stuff like this. i wont buy any china crap like disc brake rotors or bearings or pads for that matter. i just pay the little bit extra and have something i know will last. but its getting harder and harder to find parts that are made in USA. Germany and Canada are starting to be the same way. now just about everything in a parts store is made in China, Taiwan, or India. its a shame...........

 

What the hell parts are these? Disk brake conversion? What's with the big spacer? The bearing is not supposed to ride that far from the spindle. I am NOT defending China but there is more to this.

 

Front suspension is NOT the place to save $$$. Go USA made.

 

i agree with all the coment here we shold buy american when we can and the spacer on the spindle would multiply the load on the outer bearing. how did the other side look? my .02

 

Not sure, that looks reasonable to me for a disc brake hub bearing seperation...

I've had this happen before, but only galled the spindle didn't break it.

 

watch out! the chinese are invading! run for your lives!!

 

That conversion has been done for years they shrink a bearing /seal adapter onto an Early Ford spindle, that then allows the use of GM or Ford late model discs ,no problem when using Quality Bearings. All the street rod manufacturers do it that way , I don't know why a dedicated spindle wasn't done, but in our industry they all copy each other, regardless if it's a good idea or not. easier to copy that be innovative I guess.No problem with the other side I will be providing quality bearings for that side too though.

 

had the same thing happen on a 64 plymouth that belongs to my son he only had 40 miles on car lucky he was getting off interstate when happened, co more or less told me to go find better so I did will not use anything with MP kit again.

 

?? so how did a bearing failure bust the spindle??

 

Who

 

They are killing us for the dollar. Years ago I went to an auto store ordered front wheel bearings for a 55 Chevy when they came in I saw made in Japan, I refused to buy them. Now most everthing is made in China.

 

Who makes wheel bearings in the US still? A friend that builds brake kits has been searching all over for US wheel bearings, and they all seem to say "China" on them. We were talking about this last week as he was searching.

 

I'm surprised he didn't hear it or feel it before it could do that much damage. I've had to cut races off where they have welded to the spindle (American made) but never saw one wring the spindle off. To be honest I'd be as concerned about the quality of the spindle as the bearing. Is the spindle a repo spindle?

 

the guys on the British Car Forum where I also hang out have also had problems with the Chi-Com stuff... and Ithought the Romanian bearings I had probelms with years ago were bad...

 

He smelt brake dust , ( doing about 70 on the freeway ) then all of a sudden it made a hell of a noise & started to shimmy , too late pulled over end off spindle. the nut & washer were welded together from the heat. They are using inferior bearing material or hardening process. I had an email from a dealer of ours in Australia that said they have been getting Quick Change failures due to Chinese bearings. i use Dutchman & they told me they don't use Chinky bearings, & to be fair we've had no bother from their rear ends in the cars we've put them in. This China dilemma is going to be a plague on our hobby/industry until people wake up to the problems, look at the toy recalls last year 'cus of lead paint etc.Hopefully something will be done sooner rather than later , it shouldn't always be about the dollar, I willingly would pay the extra $'s for good bearings etc.

 

I will relate a true short story about the POS off shore bearings.

In 1974 I had a 1956 Harley Davidson panhead with a spool front wheel,,,,I bought the bike and my intent was to replace it with a Hallcraft as soon as possible,,,not that I thought about what junk the front wheel was but I didn't want that cheap wheel on a American Motor Cycle.

I didn't make it home,,,the cheap shit sealed front bearing locked up hauling ass down the road,,,I speed wobbled until it ripped the spokes outta the hub,,,I went off the road and down a deep embankment into an elderley black gentlemans corn field,,,,

I scared him half to death not to mention destroying a lot of his crop,,,

I hit the ground with the bike on top of my leg,,,knocked the breath out of me,,,lost my brainbucket and glasses but was alive,,,but knew I had sprang my ankle,,,

Well after taking a few deep breaths and trying to stand up I was in a lot of pain,,,I looked down at my right foot and it was facing backwards and I was looking at the sole of by boot,,,about this time I saw bones,,,I laid down and waited for the rescue squad.

The doctors wanted to amputate because of all the dirt and mud in the wound,,,my wife pleaded with one of the
surgons to at least try and save the foot,,,he did his job well because I still have it but I do limp a bit.

It took a lot of surgery and one solid year of being in a cast,,,,that's been a long time ago and I have never really talked about it much and I'm shaking now just typing.

I guess that's why I dislike off shore tools,bearings and cars,,,,I know it's harded to find the right parts but dammit I have already paid too much for cheap crap! HRP

 

The Chinese must be capable of building Quality stuff.
They even have their own Space Program.

But if our question to them is " how cheap can you make it?'

I guess he answer is " pretty damn cheap..."


In other words...

We are getting what we asked for.

 

i think their problem is no rejects, no quality control. it looks OK, in the container, send it over here, nobody checks nothing. The vendors here ain't gonna send the stuff back. You pay before the container leaves China. They just don't care. What's a stateside buyer gonna do, find another 3rd world country to deal with and have the same problem.

We don't make nothing here anymore.

I got laids off as a tool&die maker in the early 70's and never got back in the trade. We were dinosoars then, and still are.

I bought a sheet of 3/4 oak veneer plywood last week, when I got to the job, it had a label "made in China" WTF, we don't even have trees anymore?

Frank

 

I work for a company Called BOBCAT, we make the skid steer loaders, the company tried to goto a japanese bearing, due to Supply problems from Timkin, but after all the warranty issues, they worked out a deal with Timkin and thats all we use anymore. Timkin is still stamped USA.

 

<<I had an email from a dealer of ours in Australia that said they have been getting Quick Change failures due to Chinese bearings. i use Dutchman & they told me they don't use Chinky bearings, & to be fair we've had no bother from their rear ends in the cars we've put them in.>>

A leading rod builder on the West Coast (I won't mention his name) had 2 street roadsters come back on the 'hook', frozen rear axle assemblies, Halibrand Quickies.
The leading builder sent the Halibrands to my friend's shop for repair, and we cracked 'em open. The side bearings were heat-damaged, (rainbow-blue in color) and they spun on the carrier races. Pinion bearings (inner and outer) were as bad and worse, one damaging the pinion housing...
Called Halibrand, explained the problem: also mentioned that bearings were from Taiwan, and pinion bearings from Bulgaria! (it's a known World Trade fact that Bulgaria, recently an Iron Bloc country, has no metallurgic QC for the mfg of bearings, Ball-type or otherwise.)
Halibrand's desk clerk said he would get Genuine Halibrand parts boxed up and in the air from their Wellington, Ks. plant. They arrived in 2 days! When we opened the New Departure and Timken Bearing boxes, the side gears were re-boxed Taiwans, same #s as the damaged ones...the pinion bearings? Bulgaria! Again!
We called a bearing purveyor in San Jose, and he invited us down...we went through the opening of some new bearing boxes, (more than 5) before we found some New Old Stock that were American mfr, and not reboxed third world. We fixed the Hali's.
Now, before some of you fire on me, just recall what we (the Americans) were bombing in Germany in 1943. The Bearing Manufacturers. We had to force the Axis to 'grind to a halt'. What better way?

 

This happened to me in Henry Astor's car. I don't have any pics, but the spindle bent almost 45&#186;. The bearings themselves disentigrated. Lucky the car didn't end up in the aformentioned corn field.

Many companies it turns out, use Chinese bearings and they end up in some kits. What Brylen Brajkovich and Dave Crouse have been doing is buying US made bearings and throwing the others in a bin (don't mean to speak for them but I know they have been doing this).

 

Good food, bad parts.

 

Not a hot rod but I had some chinese bearings give out on the rear wheel of my '90 Ducati 750 sport... both of them.. after about 200 miles... they suck... luckily I was paying attention or it could have been even worse...





just about took out the swingarm as well....




I replaced them with quality German made bearings and am pretty happy, though I need to take the swingarm off at some point and fix the gouges...

 

Ive never seen a spacer for disk brake like that ? Usually the bigger end goes towards the flange on the spindle and the bearing goes over the small end and butts up to the big end.. Was this installed properly ?
Dave

 

Dave , what you see in the pic is the early Ford Seal diameter, the bearing is sitting on the adapter & the large diameter behind the bearing is where the GM seal runs. The adapter was on correctly, the inner bearing was only f'd after the outer one let go& the run out did in the seal.

 

That's what I'm thinking, why would it brake the spindle? I'm sure any discerning motoist would know something wasn't right if the bearing started spinning on the spindle. I have seen a bunch of spun races over the years, long before china got in the picture.

 

in 1974 China was in the throes of its Cultural Revolution, albeit in its ending days. the Berlin wall was still up, so that cancels out eastern block countries.... where offshore were those bearings made? Mexico?

China again opened their doors to the western world within the past 20 yrs. In fact, they do take pride in their products...

blame U.S. manufacturers for supporting third rate JUNK....