Bearing prices

Yup, Imperial, and the psychology over the price worked as I bought it.

Remember back in the dim and distant past hearing a something from a guy well known for his 'wind ups' it goes

- after many years on the shelf bearings are pulled out of thier boxes and re-packed with grease, so costing extra money apart from the space they take up -

We all said yes OK don't believe it, but afterwards the doubt starts ......

If it's an Imperial dimensioned bearing, they are generally much dearer than the equivalent metric item, and the discrepancy is steadily increasing. Something to do with quantities, I believe a lot of the imperial stuff is now made by specialist makers rather than the big multinational plants (whatever the label might say)

If it makes you feel any better I had to pay over 600 quid for a ball bearing a few weeks ago, & that was after scouring the country for the best price.

I can't see how it could have been 700 retail & 100 to you though, usual trade discounts are around the 60 to 65 % mark. He might have been using a bit of licence to make you feel a bit better about paying.

Cheers Tim

Dutton Dry-Dock Traditional & Modern canal craft repairs Vintage diesel engine service

Always worth putting the details on here first and see what others can get in the way of pricing.

Is your PC date/time out (by a day?)

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

Kenneth,

What is the bearing no/sizes, you may find that somebody here may have one that you could negotiate over.

Martin P

"Kenneth John Russell" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@newspe.com...

"Tim Leech" wrote

Despite having been in the industry for over ten years, bearing pricing is still pretty much a mystery to me - where do those list/retail prices come from and who, if anyone, actually pays them? For common metrics and a few still popular Imperial sizes 'trade' discounts of 50%+ are routine for anybody who walks in off the street and distributor to dealer discounts can be huge (so can the quantities though). As Tim implies above though, all this goes out the window for anything which is no longer in quantity production - he who has it on the shelf calls the tune, as the economics of having one-offs made are frightening (it can be done - SPC in Tipton are very good).

Fortunately most of the parts I deal with are aircraft bearings which tend to be priced on a simple cost plus basis - though the 'plus' can vary quite a bit depending on how keen we are to dispose of the parts and whether the customer has p****d me off recently!

Please bear in mind that this info may well be years out of date but you never know...........

When I was in the Bike trade, I made a discovery. Japanese bearings have a number on them & Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha & Kawasaki could cross reference it to the part number of that bearing used in one of their bikes - thus, a layshaft bearing from a Yamaha FS1E was the same as a front wheel bearing on an Suzuki AP50. You get the picture.

The bearings were also available from Bearing Services Limited in central Bristol, a quite large concern. Having been a parts manager in big car dealerships & having a long-term relationship with BSL, I could readily get

65% off.

However, after carrying out a little market research, I discovered that Kawasaki's sold the same bearings at a really cheap price and although I only got 20% off, it was quids better to ge to Kawasaki than BSL no matter whose bike the bearings ended up in!

So just how much did these bearings cost in the first place? Not a lot, I bet ..........

Obviously, an Imperial size bearing is going to cost more just because they can. But it might be worth seeing if there is a metric equivalent before parting with folding money.

Regards,

J. Kim Siddorn,

Definately not a 'wind up', well, in the aircraft (military) indfustry anyway.

We worked to a five year packed shelf life, after which the bearings were unpacked and the preservation grease was gently melted out in a hot oil bath.

After inspection the bearings were repacked in the heavy preservative grease and vacuum sealed in a polythene bag, wrapped in a shock absorbing cover and re-boxed for another five years.

On issue to an aircraft or engine job, the bearings were again hot oil cleaned, washed in an ultrasonic degreasing machine to remove all traces of the preservative, and then resoaked in the oil/grease that was to be used in their final installation.

The reason for this was that the majority of spares were supplied from the aircraft manufacturer for the life of the aircraft, which meant that some aircraft like the Seaking for instance were given a 25 year service life, and bulk supply of spares were supplied from Sikorsky via Westlands in one hit.

If you balance the cost of the bearing in 1960, and add the cost of an hours labour every five years, and then realise that the spares may no longer be available from commercial suppliers, you have to be quids in.

Insufficient data supplied... Can't pass judgment unless bearing number is quoted.

However surely your question is the age old internet one where after buying something without research one then solicits opinions?

My opinion? The day I spent 100 quid on a bearing for a 2.5 kva genset, petrol would have to be back at 15 cents a gallon. With a rasp, a bit of shimstock and a club hammer, a metric bearing will always be a cheaper substitute.

Tom

I think the US still work on imperial bearing sizes, and the exchange rate is excellent, is there maybe a problem cross-referencing them ?

I admit that I don't understand bearing prices in the UK or even buy them very often, but for the sort of money you are talking it might be worth checking the US websites like Boston Gear. I think FedEx etc can get them here fairly quick. Has anyone tried this and can spot the obvious problem I have overlooked ?

Steve

That's probably true for regular ball races, Steve, but we are talking about the old "RJT1-1/4" type of bearings that Hoffmann and the Ransome-Hoffmann and then Ransome-Hoffmann-Pollard (RHP) sold to almost all of the UK's vehicle manufacturers.

Those don't cross-reference very easily, but there are stocks around if you have a good rummage.

Whenever I see a smallish batch of such bearings I pick them up if cheap enough and squirrel them away for a rainy day!

Also, Unipart re-sold a lot of these bearings in their own packaging, so possibly a source there as well.

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:

Thanks Peter,

There's a lot to this bearing business, and I am sure we sometimes get stitched up. Newsgroups like this can really pay, especially if there isn't an owners club to contact.

As an example, I am currently stripping down my Norton, and that may need main bearings (and a lot more). I think they started with a roller on the drive side and ball on the timing side, then they upped the power and went to rollers on both, though you had to shim the end float, then they found that barrel shaped rollers were better (superblends as they were called then)...

So if you were restoring an older engine you might go to a lot of trouble to find a matching roller and ball pair, because you wouldn't know about the later alternative. You couldn't look this up in a cross-reference table, so you need something more. Maybe its an idea for a website - though it would need to be one where people could chip in - a WikiBearing ?

Steve

Norton's also used a weird 1-1/8" spec bearing in the gearbox which was actually a 1-1/8" + and had a bore of 1-1/4" Very hard to get hold of but this bearing is a standard in the US. I had some shipped over when we were doing the racing gearboxes.

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

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Glad to say I redid the gearbox bearings about 20 to 25 years ago and it has been sweet as nut ever since - its probably still got the same oil in for that matter (mostly!). But then its a simple 4 speed in a Dommie, I never had the money for the Quaife internals.

Steve

Both Burman and AMC had non standard main drive gear ID bearings. I remember as a school boy, wincing very heavily, when paying about

4 times the price of a comparable standard bearing for my 350 Matchie. That was for a Burman, later I discovered that AMC had inherited the same practice although their box was superior, to give credit, certainly better than the Norton it replaced.

Tom

Tom

I rebuilt mine about 30 years ago and that's still sweet as a nut (4 sp AMC) but I rebuilt another Dommie box about 3 or 4 years ago for a mate who supplied his own bearings which said genuine Norton parts on the delivery note with a green circle thing on the packets and they were made in Japan! It's still running ok though.

Martin