1941 Cadillac: Has any one done a conversion of FRONT wheel ball bearings to taper roller bearings? If so is there any reference brand -store- etc.?
Thanks,
Alan Feltham Member#11926
Just curious why you want to do this? My '56 has ball bearings and I put thousands of high speed miles on it without issue.
Simply rigidity / stability
There are places online with conversion kit/info but it was pretty expensive so I am keeping the originals.
HTH
Brett
Whenever I do these sorts of changes, or anything similar, I take the old bearings to my Bearing supplier, and simply get replacements with the same inner and outer diameter, and if necessary, am prepared to machine where necessary to make things fit.
The Tapered Roller Bearings are for some reason cheaper, and more plentiful than the Ball Bearings, and take a heavier load.
Bruce. >:D
PS. The day that Judging comes down to testing bearings is the day that I get out of cars, and that will never be.
I looked into converting the front wheel bearings on my 38 LaSalle and someone in the club, I can't remember who, gave me the following information.
The complete bearing set is:
Outer bearing and race; Timken LM11949 and LM11919
Inner bearing and Race Assembly: Maekawa MBS 909052R
Inner Oil seal Napa 19940
The problem is the Maekawa bearing (Maekawa Bearing Mfg Co. in Japan). There appears to be no US distributor for their bearings and I was told that they had been indicted for 'Dumping' on the U.S. market which is probably why I couldn't find anyone who could supply the bearing. I installed the original ball bearings and they appear to work just fine but are, in general, more expensive than tapered rollers.
If you can find the inner bearing race assembly I would be interested in how and where.
Tom Beaver
Have you tried going to a good bearing store and getting the Maekawa number cross-referenced. If they make someone else probably does too.
Geoff N.
I agree with Geoff. In my experience many automotive bearings have the same model number regardless of manufacturer. You could also try the Olcar Bearing Company, Southern Pines, N. Carolina, telephone: 910-693-3324. The firm's owner, George Bachleda, is very knowledgable about bearings, very helpful and his prices are reasonable.
My front inner nos bearings have 909662 stamped on the race and made in the USA. I think I bought these from you Jay ?
The bearing suppliers I talked with not only did not have a cross reference for Maekawa but could not find any reference to the company at all. The inner race for the ball bearing is, by current standards, an oddity in that it has an additional flange built into it that the grease seal rides on, rather than having the sealing surface part of the spindle. The addition of the seal flange makes the bearing application very limited which is why I doubt that anyone else makes a tapered roller for this application. If you were to machine out a separate seal flange and press it onto the spindle then I assume you could find a standard tapered roller bearing that would fit without much trouble. When I got to this point however, I thought it wasn't worth the trouble and bought new ball bearings from my local supplier.
Tom Beaver