Needle bearings

The old #961 U-Joint - at $30 from the Rock I would NOT be fooling around with drill rod or mixing and matching parts. That is a critical high stress component that you do NOT want failing on the road. Been there, done that, got the greasy "T" shirt. (more than once)

Are there bearing cups pressed into the caps with the ears? If so, a replacement cross-piece with the same diameter caps could be pressed into the caps after pressing out the old ones. This gets you new cross-piece, needles, and cups, so you should get a much longer running life than from the various rebuild attempts with mis-matched needles.

Again -- are the ears pressed onto the cups? If so, then they

*do* have what you really need. On the ones which I have worked on, the "ears" were a complete ring with two cups pressed in at 180 degree intervals, while the other two cups went into permanent ears on the driveshaft itself.

Beware! (Modern drill shanks are not hardened -- they are mild steel. The flutes and tip are HSS and there is a pretty much invisible weld between the flutes and the shank.

To test this -- take a file to the shank first, then try the flutes. You will see the difference rather quickly. :-)

Be sure to mic the needles to find as close a match to the originals as possible. No certainty that they will be the same from one U-joint to another -- especially between manufacturers.

For that matter -- what are the bearing surfaces like on the X-piece, and in the cups? If either are other than perfectly smooth, you will likely have a new failure fairly soon after rebuilding.

Good Luck, DoN.

The proper part is available, and not much more expensive than a new style unit. Don't waste your time and money fooling around bodging it together. Buy the right part and know you don't nrrd to worry about !!

Thanks everyone! Found the Moog 508 at the local O'Reilly. Will pick up this am. Meanwhile, drillrod (5/64") already ordered from MC. $2.84 plus $12 shipping. Too late to cancel. Ivan Vegvary

I have not heard of this. Maybe it's something the Chinese are doing.

Standard American jobber bits (like Cleveland) are made of a solid piece of high-speed steel. The shank is annealed to prevent dangerous breaks. Shanks on some brands of jobber bits are around 0.002" under the nominal diameter, and generally are not precision-ground.

Are you sure you aren't looking at the end of a coating, rather than a weld? There are several different coatings in use on quality drill bits.

Well, you'll have backup! :) It's always better to have the real part altho I suspect unless the use is continual highway they would last quite a long time presuming got the hardened rod, not the annealed.

Glad you did find the real part...certainly the better solution if can do and local is even better.

Obviously too late to help you, but if this comes up in the future...............

You might consider machining a bronze bushing for a temporary solution. A bushing ought to last a reasonable amount of time.

Dan

What I want to know is who is going to cut a hole in the floorboards and sit over the bronze-bushed joint with an oilcan.

A bushing ought to last a reasonable amount of time.

I do not think that would be a big problem. If the two shafts are in line, there is no motion and in normal automotive use , I expect there is not mu ch motion. Normal life for needle bearings is probably over 100,000 miles. For a bronze bushing, I would guess it would last about 10,000 miles, mor e if there is a grease fitting. I doubt it any modern car has a grease fit ting on the universal joint, but a 48 Pontiac ? At one time the cars came with U joints without grease fittings. But the replacement parts had greas e fittings.

As for the material type, I would use what I had on hand. It is a temporar y fix for a daughter. Sometimes getting to work is important. If it is a restoration and there is no need to drive it while waiting for the right pa rt, then wait until you have the right part.

Dan

The other thing I'd want to know, from Gunner, is what is "pure" bronze?

Welded or annealed, the "shank" of many bits is terribly soft and can be deformed/torn in the chuck if the bit slips. Definitely not the material to use for a high speed roller bearing!!!

Glad you found the right "U" joint and are going to be fixing it right.

If you consider a hundred miles or so reasonable -----

Sounds kinda "cuban" to me. Mabee something that would have been done in the East Germany of old too.

Well, there was the old inline-four Indian motorcycle from the '30s, too. It had no oil pump and no splash. You pulled (or pushed, I forget) a handle on an oil pump. No kidding. You had to do it a lot.

Right. And don't try hardening HSS with a torch. d8-)

One of the reasons that a drive line contains "universal" joints is because the wheels go up and down :-)

Actually it wasn't only the Indian 4, it was all Indians of that era and Harley-Davidson too :-)

The only one I ever saw, and could confirm, was the Indian I saw in New Hope, PA around 1972. I had a long conversation with the owner, who showed me how the thing worked. You really had to be determined to ride those bikes.

I don't *see* the weld (I said "pretty much invisible"), but the shanks of normal HSS drill bits made in the USA are *way* too soft to be annealed HSS. I don't *use* drills from China. I'm just judging by how soft the shanks are. Whenever you spin a bit in a chuck, you will see ridges and grooves dragged around the shank.

If HSS can really be annealed *that* soft, I'll take your word for it, but I thought that even annealed HSS was not nearly that soft.

Enjoy, DoN.