Don,
To keep this off list (instead of getting further into he said / she said),
the bearing manufacturer -- NTN of Canada --specifically says not to preload
the bearing... that is the most reliable source I've heard, and I've had
conversations with Joachim Gunst in his native German and he has yet to
provide me with convincing evidence of why the bearing should be preloaded.
Neither Joachim or the guy who copied it produce the actual bearings
themselves, and I've had both come through my hands and the bearings
themselves are absolutely identical.
I do agree though, that without the spring and strap the bearing squeals...
obviously that doesn't matter who you buy the bearing from.
However, to give Gunst the benefit of the doubt, I am going to remove the
brass sleeve from the bearing tomorrow, get the part number from the inner
race and contact NTN myself. Time to put this issue to rest. While BPNW
gave me second hand info from NTN, I doubt BPNW would have been so revealing
with the bearing manufacturer's name if they did not truely believe the
beairng should be unloaded.
I've always thought that if you went through such trouble to come up with a
very nice bronze bearing sleeve and a high quality bearing, why did the
spring setup look so poorly thought out? There are much neater ways to
accomplish the same task, including fitting a stiffer piston return spring
in the slave cylinder - which is probably the best way to do this, as the
spring is than also contained (and protected from road debris and weather
elements). Also spring in the slave cylinder is under compression rather
than in tension, which is typically preferable, because springs last longer
in compression than in tension.
I have three other bearings in the shop that I will be performing Dick
Taylor's dynamic load experiments on, probably over the winter. All will be
standard fittiments to the TR6 stock sleeve (or brass TR3/4 sleeve). One of
the bearings is from a Toyota Supra and looks really nice, another one is
from a Dodge pickup and is the same exact size as the stock TR6 RHP bearing,
but is much more rugged in construction (that bearing in particular requires
no preload). The Dodge bearing is $22 which is a good bit cheaper than than
any bearings out now.
It is not that I do not like the Gunst bearing, the bearing assembly is very
nice, it is just that no one can agree on how it should be run and Gunst has
never forwarded me any specific information regarding bearing preload from
the manufacturer... while BPNW has given me a source that I can check with
and confirm.
Kai
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