N9181C 576208 Mainshaft Rear Brg Options Bushing

Lovel said:

I will contact JRW to establish if the bearing that they supply is original design manufacture or if they simply use the larger ID brg with a bush.

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JRW has the bearings that are exactly the same as OE, and he's the only place I know that does. (Or he did have them the last time I bought one. Prepare your wallet for a rifling.)

harveyp6 said:

Lovel said:

I will contact JRW to establish if the bearing that they supply is original design manufacture or if they simply use the larger ID brg with a bush.

Click to expand...

JRW has the bearings that are exactly the same as OE, and he's the only place I know that does. (Or he did have them the last time I bought one. Prepare your wallet for a rifling.)

Click to expand...

Just got confirmation from JRW that their replacement bearing although not original Rover supply are to the same specification as original with 1.00" ID.

JRW also mentioned the issue that you highlighted with mainshaft lock up from some sleeve kits that were supplied from a few years ago. Possibly thats why the 4 speed gets such bad press :?:

So the conclusion to me is that using a 1 1/8" ID bearing and sleeve whatever design is not a credible solution given that there is a such small landing area where the inner bearing race engages to the mainshaft. Rifle at ready :wink:

Just to advise that due to limited production runs the cost of the rear mainshaft bearing from JRW has increased to £125 + VAT. If I had one criticism about the bearing I would have preferred that the manufacturer of the bearing had machined less of a champher on the inner race as there is not too much landing area to engage with the mainshaft, however as it stands it works fine and at least the shaft does not lock up with everything torqued up.

Yes £125 is kind of hefty, but before anyone gets excited and rants about the cost of the bearing being ridiculous, and just to get things into perspective. The business I work in, charges a £5,000.00 engineering fee and that's just for a part number change on a drawing, we haven't even carried out actual design work or cut any steel or yet.

I don't think you can complain about the price of the bearing if JRW is the only company prepared to have them remade to exact size and keep them in stock.

^^^WHS^^^ It may be steep, but as the OP has found out after a lot of speculation and messing about, unless you're prepared to make up a proper tophat sleeve for the bearings with the larger id, and machine the speedo gear to suit, there's no alternative. You just have to pay up and be thankful that someone out there has had them made.

harveyp6 said:

^^^WHS^^^ It may be steep, but as the OP has found out after a lot of speculation and messing about, unless you're prepared to make up a proper tophat sleeve for the bearings with the larger id, and machine the speedo gear to suit, there's no alternative. You just have to pay up and be thankful that someone out there has had them made.

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TBH, the Top hat design is also flawed imho, the larger 1 1/8" bearing inner race ID is an issue whether with the simple sleeve or top hat design.
The problem is the inner race has too large a lead-in and does not make contact with the mainshaft until it travels too far whereupon it then locks the shaft up.

But when you make the tophat you can make whatever lead in you want on it, any lead in on the bearing itself will have no effect at all. I'm well aware of what the problems are with the standard sleeved bearing because I've been there, the only difference was I realised it wasn't going to work before I even fitted it.