front wheel bearings for 79 midget?

[pethia]

I have some play in my front right wheel bearing. When I look up the front wheel bearings for this year, I get confusing results. The Haynes manual shows an inner an outer set of bearings. The results from auto parts search show a wide range of bearings from as little as a National @ $18.00 to timken at about $38. Are these ball bearings or roller bearings? I am not certain which to buy? I put very few miles on the care each year.

 

[jlaird]

Hard to go wrong with Timken. Should last the rest of your life.

 

[Spridget64SC]

I've had good luck with both National and Timkem products. Just make sure to look at the parts before you plunk down your greenbacks. These companies are global companies and the parts inside could have many locations of origin. The front wheel bearings on our LBCs are a very common size which also means lots of suppliers. This makes lower quality suppliers want to sell these popular sizes. So again, open the box in front of the seller and see where they were made and what the visual perspective of quality indicates. Compare them to your old ones and look closely. Timken is good, usually boxing their own product from one of their manufacturing locations anywhere around the globe. National would likely box a Bowers bearing from one of their locations. But this doesn't mean that you won't find something else in the box for that size bearing.

Timken also has many facilities in the US providing jobs to its citizens. One is not more than 2 miles from my house making the Torrington product line. So, I'll vote for them. They employ my neighbors and fellow taxpayers albeit, not as many as need jobs.

HTH,
Mike Miller

 

[JPSmit]

didn't we recently have a definitive size posted?

 

[tomshobby]

J-P, I have posted the correct OEM bearings and why many being used do not fit correctly. Even had the help of a very accomplished engineer in the automotive world supply some of the technical information among the many that helped with the year long project. I also posted at least one source for the correct OEM bearings which are still being made.

https://smithtr6.com/bearings.htm

I recently posted the source where I got mine.

I had tried roller bearings in my hubs first and when I later installed the OEM bearings found a very noticeable reduced amount of resistance when rotating the hubs.

One more thing, like so many things we do with our cars this is a personal choice and everyone needs to do what they feel right for themselves.