Technical Chinese wheel bearings

Get Japanese NSK bearings.
I'm in China [writing this] and I needed some bearings. Even the Chinese need to import NSK bearings

Japanese stuff is pretty good quality [and damm sight better than some well known brands that outsource their manufacturing]

 

Be relentless in returning faulty products and sending your complaints to the company who has their name on the box. They are responsible, they are the jerks that decide whether to make their products here or buy it somewhere where they cannot control the quality. Do everything you can to push the shit back uphill.

 

quick update: I put in a phone call to our local bearing house and they will have my bearings for me this coming Wednesday, Timken brand. surprisingly not even the napa warehouse had them in stock they only showed one in Tennessee, the crap from speedway will be going back on Monday.

a few years ago I purchased the Lincoln drum brake setup from speedway and when I called there "Tech" department no one there could give me an answer as to what brake lines to use. I had to call the manufacturer. how the hell can you sell a product and know absolutely nothing about it, unfortunately though the company is so large complaints seem to fall on deaf ears.

 

I ordered a jacket with the USA on the sleeve an American flag on the back red white and blue from USA coats.....
you guessed. made in china

 

When I did the axle bearings in my Ford, I pried out the old oil seals. They were Nationals and also had Made in Mexico on them. These had the leather that the axle rides in. I'd say they lasted a while.

 

I worked, and retired from, a huge US based defense industry supplier. About twenty years ago they were going through one of those changing paradigms, remake the company, empower the working man, periods. They had a big rally in the plant, lotsa big wheels, etc. they passed out American flag hat pins as we all filtered in - maybe 500 employees. First speaker from the head shed welcomed everyone and made mention of the flag pins...here it comes...guys started to look at the pins and there on the back was "Made in China". Guys started lobbing them at the speaker. Security took over the podium and they bombed him too. They got the message and made big apologies. I'll never forget it.

 

i dont believe everything made in china is junk ,just the stuff they sell to the cheap ass westerners that buy it and on sell to genuine people thinking they are buying good stuff .based on the known brand box it is supplied in . when I have to buy a bearing, I'm quite well known for washing up and repacking good used bearings on my old cars I go into my local bearing blokes and they will if you ask you if you want good stuff or junk you decide as you pay the price

 

I run real Buick 45 fin drums coupled to '48-'52 Ford F-2 backing plates. Those brakes, although not disc by any means, stopped a heavy '58 Buick and a 3/4 ton Ford truck. I always get compliments on them as actual drum brakes on my Deuce roadster. Just remember they will never be power-assisted discs, but they will ALWAYS be cool.

 

Chinese are built to a price, not a standard? You should get what you pay for with tried and proven quality brand names.

 

being a line mech for gm for almost 40 years i have been tired of all the bull shit from all the manufactures about BUY US MADE! theres nothing us made any more. MAYBE CANDY! IF IN NOT MISTAKEN TIMKEN, NATIONAL, AND ALL THE BIG BEARING MAKERS have gone across the water for cheap labor. wanted to buy a new lift for the shop, did some research, i could not find one company making lifts in us. sorry for the rant, but i think i will go ahead and send my tax money overseas.

 

SKF has huge production facilities in India.

 

The last SKF bearing sets purchased were made in Japan. Quality looked excellent to me, I just want good parts because I hate duplication of effort. I like to find out where the shops buy their parts, and what they use. They don't like callbacks and they find out real quick what works and what doesn't because it comes right out of their bottom line.

 

Sounds like a fine offer. Hopefully I can find this if I ever need your help.Thanks!
A couple of years ago I went on a cruise and one of the stops was in Cozumel, Mexico. Granted, not much more than a tourist trap, even the workers commute. Just for shits and giggle I picked up some of the souvenirs, and looked on the tags. You guessed it, "Made in China". Think about that one for a while.
Just to stay on topic, Timken still manufactures bearings in a former Torrington plant in Union, SC. I have no idea what they actually make. ( Timken bought out Torrington). I was at a bearing seminar in their repair facility just up the road. They repair bearings. (Remanufacture). Impressive operation. But dont think you can send them your stuff, the guys said they typically dont fool with anything that has a shaft smaller than 15 inches.

 

Remember the term jap crap look at their cars now they ruel the world dont poopoo the chinese too much but I believe you guys have voted in a president to make America great again

 

I'm told by a knowledgeable guy at NTN that they have a manufacturing plant in the southern US (I don't recall exactly where), that makes nothing but 6203 2RS bearings, the most commonly used radial ball bearing. It's an entirely automated line, the first human hands to touch those bearings are the person's that buys the bearing and takes it out of the packaging. I'd guess there's a lot of that sort of automation in bearing and seal manufacture now, which would make it possible to build a quality product just about anywhere in the world.

 

Bought a set of Timken rear axle bearings for a Ford 9" (3.150) earlier this year thinking surely they would be made in the USA. Wrong! Made in China printed on the familiar Timken box. What a disappointment. My parts guy says he heard that Timken shipped all their bearing manufacturing equipment to China and set up shop. Perhaps the new folks in D.C. will apply the necessary pressure.

 

Do you mean the guy that has his clothing line made in China? The largest local employer here was a tire plant that shutdown in the 80s and all of the equipment went to China.

As The Boss wrote; Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain't coming back to your hometown.

 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/1955-chevy-front-wheel-bearing-issues.1022324/
I went through 10 sets of inner wheel bearings ( National B40 made in China).They lasted about 1500-2000 miles each on average. NOS or/ and Made in USA is the way to go , I think

 

Timken operates plants in 28 countries and YES that includes China. Does that mean the Chinese ones are differnt or worse than the other 27 countries? NO, it depends on how they run their quality control

 

I was always in sort of amazement of machine tools, in my high school shop class (do they still have those?) there was a whole slew of ancient bridgeport lathes and huge end mills and the rest of it, all kinds of old school machine tooling stuff, much of it owned ostensibly by the government or on loan, churning out parts for the various wars over the years. Later in the .mil the unit I was in were given a tour of a facility in South Korea making Black Hawk helicopters under license from United Technologies. They had this huge ... thing, some kind of stamping machine or fabricator not sure what it was even, said "OHIO" made of that green painted cast iron. My first impression was wondering how the hell they even got it over there in the first place. Kind of sad, the whole deindustrialization of America has been on the bucket list for a LONG time.

 

Our flag was tattered from high winds, weather (gets to 110* here in summer)
Mother-in-law surprised us with a new flag. Ah, but on a tag attached to the inner seam of Old Glory:
-Made in China

 

Ok, I'll jump in on this! Bearings can go bad just being improperly stored and not maintained. Say what! you say? Yes the older the bearings are, the more likely they may fail. These would be the NOS type that have sat around since who knows when. It doesn't make any difference if they are made in the U.S.A. or from across the seas. Bearings can go bad sitting in a drawer and never removed from the original packaging. The reason for this is vibration. The process the bearing goes through is called Brinnelling,(sp) it has to do with the movement of the ball or roller on the race in the same spot. In major industries like Space Programs, Nuclear Power, even in parts of the Military they have bearing maintenance programs where they are stored in special drawers to protect from vibration. In some programs they are inspected on a periodic basis, lubricated and repackaged, sealing them from the environment. I believe the best we can do at this point, is to select the most suitable quality of bearing made and not purchase the least expensive. If I was going out tomorrow and buy bearings, I would buy Japanese IMO.

 

One thing to check for, the last time I bought bearings one of them had obviously been opened and removed from the package and then returned. Somebody must have bought the wrong size. So check the boxes first, at the counter. "Sealed for your protection."

 

Bought new spindles and drums for my Zipper from Speedway and bearings from NAPA that were made in Mexico. Every thing fit correctly. I balance the drums and wheels separately and then as a unit. The Chinese Speedway drums were right on the money!

 

Do you turn new drums? Some folks say they always do a light skim or face cut even in new drums just to be sure they are absolutely true.

 

Yes...the Speedway drums were true.

 

Basic supply and demand. More and more people buying "inexpensive/cheap" Chinese parts equals less demand for quality US parts and eventually the US parts are gone for good. I am an American, I buy American. I don't care if the price is double or triple more than the Chinese part.

 

That article was very interesting, does not leave a lot of hope for our big industries. I work for a huge corporation that just merged part of its business with another huge corporation, they thinned us out like barnacles on the bottom of a boat.

And, Blue One, I am not in a world where Chinese products are on an upturn of quality. There is probably some decent stuff out there, but I have not been around it.

Quality costs money, but there is value in that.

 

If you have the bearing number you can usually find old stock bearings on Ebay for a somewhat reasonable price.
The Timken 14116 shows up as a transfer case output shaft bearing in some listings.
The almighty profit for the stock holders thing has sent a lot of companies out of the country in search of lower costs often in the loss of quality. Had a world wide known small boat maker that first had a plant near where I work then built a new plant a few miles away leave the plant and move to Mexico after being in the new plant about two years because they could make a few bucks more profit on each boat.

 

I'm not defending Chinese made parts as a whole but I was talking to a wheel manufacture (ET) , asked if his wheels were US made. He admitted they are cast in China but machined here in the states. He explained that you can get good products or bad products out of China, it depends on how much money you are willing to spend. His wheels are cast in the same factory that cast VW and Audi rims, says the quality is better then he could find from a US casting company. Sad affair there. You know, I use a lot of American Racing wheels, kills me they say "made in China" cast right in them (that's why I was looking into ET) but I have to admit I haven't had any issues with the American Racing since they went off shore. At this point we just need to figure out which manufacture puts out quality or are price driven, no matter where the come from.