Bronze bushings

[Basil]

I had been thinking about replacing the original roller bearings in my Jag's IRS (lower wishbone and hub carrier bearings) with after-market solid bronze bushings. However, after talking with a friend of mine who is a certified Master of Masters Jaguar mechanic, I have decided to stick with the original design (needle bearings). Yes, they are a bit of a pain to install and set up, but he convinced me that in the long run, good quality steel needle bearlings will hold up better. He highly recommended against the bronze bushings, and so I have decided to stick with the original style set up. If you think about it from an engineering standpoint, the original needle bearings distribute the frictional forces across a much larger surface area (as the rollers spin). With the bronze bush set ups, all of the frictional forces are against the same spot on the solid bushes, whic logic would suggest, is not as good as distributing the forces against roller bearings that can spin and reduce the overall frictional effects. Besides, my original bearings had been in the car for over 30 years and they were still in perfect shape (I replaced them anyway on principle), so I doubt I will have any problems in my lifetime. Whereas the broze bushs are a relatively new modification being sold which have not been installed in any cars for any great length of time.

I'm wondering what other's thoughts are on this subject?

Basil

[ 01-04-2003: Message edited by: Basil ]</p>

 

[Doug]

I agree with you on the bearings.

If there's someone out there making improved seals, and I'm pretty sure there is, i think that would be a good idea.

Cheers

 

[Basil]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Doug:
I agree with you on the bearings.

If there's someone out there making improved seals, and I'm pretty sure there is, i think that would be a good idea.

Cheers<hr></blockquote>

On the surface (no pun intended), the bronze bushes sound good, but my friend pointed out that the original design of the IRS bearlings is actually very very good (and he should know). I do agree that the whole thing is a bit of a pain to install and it would be nice if there was a better seal set up, but once its installed you should not have to worry about it for a long time. I'm not knocking it if someone wants to install the bronze bushs (they are certainly easier to install, and you don't have to set up the bearing pre-loads on the hub carriers like you do with stock bearings).

Basil