I bought a Muncie rebuild kit, and although the kit appears to be a quality one, I am concerned about the bearings. One is made in China and the other Japan. They look like well made pieces, but I just don't know. Year One has GM pieces, but they are some serious $$$ ($118 for both). If anyone has used the offshore bearings in their tranny, how are they holding up? I really want this rebuild to last.

Thanks,
Marc

Who is the kit builder?

If the Japanese bearings are made by Nachi, Koyo, or NSK then they are very good pieces. Don't be misled by the Japanese name, they are darn parts.

The Chinese parts are suspect. Unlike Japanese bearings Chinese bearings do not have manufacturing representation in the USA. They are brought in by importers who buy from a conglomerate of plants. No manufacturer never comes from the same place twice, no guarantee. I have some real horror stories that will curl your hair.

A great source for standard replacement bearings is your local industrial distributor such as Motion Industries or Kaman Industrial Technologies. Prices are usually fair and the major distributors (Motion, Kaman) only deal with quality suppliers. The major players are SKF, NSK, Torrington, FAG, and Timken. Just bring in your old bearing and ask for a Normal or C3 internal clearance for standard single row deep groove ball or cylindrical roller bearings.

Good luck.

Carl Casanova
NSK Corporation


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Marc,

Carl C is right on. I too just purchased the re-build kit and found it good except for the bearings. I work at a Port Authority in Charleston , SC and have some very knowledgeable friends in the crane maintenance department. They nixed the Chinese bearing immediately and “recommended” a replacement for the Japanese one. They said it was OK, but would replace it if it was going into their M-21. We have a local bearing distributor who matched them up with two American made, high quality replacements distributed by Federal-Mogul. I can get you the numbers if you would like. Cost was about $72.00 for both units.

Thank you both for the great info. I bought the kit from Rick's 1st generation. It came in a non-descript white box, so other than sourcing it from Rick's, I don't know if I can tell who built the kit. I will check for other stamps on the bearings and see if it is one of the types you listed.

SEK Z28, yes I would very much appreciate the numbers on those Federal Mogul units.

Do you think I should be concerned about any of the other parts in the kit? The rest of the parts, other than maybe the needle bearing and synchros, looked like they wouldn't need to be as "heavy duty" as those main bearings, and thus looked like adequate pieces.

Thanks again for the great info.

-Marc

Marc,

I'll try to remember to get the numbers and bring them in tomorrow. The mechanics gave the new bearings the thumbs up when they looked at them. They also said everything else in the kit looked very good, I bought the same thing you did from Rick’s. The mechanics warned me of this from the start but said the other parts were worth the price even if I had to replace the bearings. I bought both of the bearings for $25 less than the local GM dealer wanted for one. It's probably the same bearing too!!!!

Marc; Question about the kit. The little syncronizer keys, the metal bars about 3/16 wide and an inch long or so that go in the syncro hub - are they solid machined bar steel or are they stamped from sheet metal? Just curious.

There's a lot can be read into "Made in the USA"

There are really only two major American owned bearing manufactures that we will deal with for cars. Of the two, Timken only makes tapered roller bearings. Even the Federal Mogul parts, including BCA, are foreign owned but made in the USA. There are some items that you will only be able to by from BCA, others you have a choice.

Pull GM replacement bearing out of the box and it will likely have a manufacturers name on it. We OEM-box hundreds of thousands of bearings for OEM replacement parts.

The main thing is to stick with a major company who maintains the same quality control standards in all of their plants, no matter where they are located.

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Tom,

The synchro keys look like they are solid machined bar steel. There are slight vertical machine lines on each side of the key where I believe it would be cut off the bar. Although, I would say I am not an expert on this. What would a key look like that was stamped from sheet metal?

-Marc

Marc,

The numbers are as follows:
308-L Federal-Mogul # on box = A00245
N307LOE Federal-Mogul # on Box = 99282

I tried to read the barcode numbers, but they were damaged. Again, CarlC is right. On of the bearings was only available from BCA who I believe is owned by NTN. The selection of manufacturers for these two units is not as large as you would think. Our crane department has used these bearings for some time with no major problems, and I understand it one of the manufacturing plant is outside of Greenville, SC.

You need to go to the sister site to this one, www.chevelles.com/aces (http://www.chevelles.com/aces) then into the tech area, and look up DZAUTO, Tom Parsons. He is in Mustang, Oklahoma. His phone number is listed.

That site's tech section is set up like this one, so maneuvering through it should be easy.

He just announced his intent to answer questions and help anyone who wants/needs help with Muncie transmissions. Tom is quite knowledgeable with Muncie transmission tech/rebuild/parts. Info on contact is there.

The GM bearings that I got about 6 months ago are from BCA. The rear bearing was of a sealed type and I did not use it because it did not have enough thrust surface for 1st gear.



[This message has been edited by secndgn (edited 10-17-2000).]

Yup, Federal Mogul sold all the BCA and Bower plants to NTN a while back. NTN's not to hip on the marketing end so FM is their marketing channel. FM is also much better known to the average person. I have a coworker who worked in that NTN plant as a plant engineer for three years. NTN is the worlds third largest bearing manufacturer (bearings + CV joints) behind SKF (#1) and NSK.

Many of the GM parts are oddball automotive only configurations. Economically it does not make sense for two manufacturers to make the same part because of special tooling requirements. Since one production line can cost $10M+ it takes a lot of bearings to break even.

Those FM #'s will get you a long way since all transmission kit builders can identify a FM #. However, it does not mean you will recieve a BCA/Bower part. There are other manufactures that make the same part to fit the same envelope and kit builders will use what they can, or, what they can get away with.

Just say no to the Chinese parts. They are beyond scary.

Carl

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In case anyone was interested, I ended up getting SKF bearings. They are very nice pieces. The one thing that really hit home with me is that one of the bearings in the rebuild was not a "max fill" bearing. It only had 8 balls in it. I was told that this is not adequate for the kind of abuse this bearing will take. The SKF unit has 11 balls I believe. I sure have learned more than I thought I could about bearings in this process, and I guess that's a good thing. Take care guys and good luck on your Muncie rebuilds.

-Marc

mwh,

SKF is a quality company. Good call.

However, care must be exercised on max-type ball bearings. In order to assemble this type of bearing a filling slot on the inner ring is mandatory. If axial loads are applied the balls will roll over the filling slot and the bearing will soon fail. Very carefull planning must be done to avoid axial loading on the filling slot. Also, the max type bearing has a lower limiting speed.

Carl

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