king pin needle bearing's

Yes one of the suppliers to Ford used Needle radial bearings and the other spherical rollers. The needle style is Mfg. by Timken for Ford B-3123-A1, The -A2 is the spherical roller bearing.
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about the difference:
A needle roller bearing is a bearing which uses small cylindrical rollers.The difference between a needle roller bearing and roller bearing is the ratio of diameter and length of their rollers, when the ratio of the diameter and the length of roller of a roller bearing is between the interval of 0.1 to 0.4, that roller bearing is called a needle roller bearing. They are used to reduce the friction of a rotating surface.
Needle bearings have a large surface area that is in contact with the bearing outer surfaces compared to ball bearings. Additionally there is less added clearance (difference between the diameter of the shaft and the diameter of the bearing) so they are much more compact. The typical structure consists of a needle cage which orients and contains the needle rollers, the needle rollers themselves, and an outer race (sometimes the housing itself).
Radial needle bearings are cylindrical and use rollers parallel to the axis of the shaft. Thrust needle bearings are flat and use a radial pattern of needles.
 
This is nothing new - have heard about retrofit conversions like this for at least 25 years. I've never ran them myself, but the concept could work - if all the materials/surfaces were designed for them. It would seem that a precision/hardened sleeve would need to be pressed into the spindles - as I can't see the hardened needle bearings working against the stock steel bores??? But who knows . . .
 
whizzernick said:
anyone ever heard of That?????
Should reduce friction on steering??
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Yes, in fact I have needle bearing king pins installed on my '51 Merc.
There is a noticeable difference in the steering effort needed as compared to the original bushing type.
The bearings are semi-caged with the outer shell pressed into the spindle supports.
The bearings ride on the kingpin the same as the bushed ones do.
 
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I could never justify the price on those. The OEM bushing types would last an easy 100K miles with normal service intervals. They wear out slow enough that they can easily be checked for looseness when doing normal service.

A lot of different needle bearings are used in the helicopter systems I work on. They need to use a grease that is thin enough to permeate the bearings well and I grease them every 25-hours to get the longest possible life out of them. When they fail, they do it pretty quickly so you have to be on your toes with them.
 
Wizzer, just a clarification, are you talking about the king pin bearing or the king pin bushings? The B-3123-A1 is a bearing that rides between the spindle and the axle and the bushings are what gets pressed into the spindle.
 
A needle bearing needs to turn for lubrication, being static for long periods gives you brinelling so even though it sounds like a great idee it has some issues in real life.
 
Ford only used the needle bearings with the sector shafts one year. of 36. That is a hint. I don't know of any manufacturer using them with spindles. The mating parts need to be super hard. The 36 sector shafts were sure hard!
 
flatheadmurre is correct. Back in the '70s someone was selling needle bearing kits to replace the spindle bushings. You needed to bring the spindles to a machine shop and have the spindles machined to accept the new needle bearings. As he points out, bearings love to spin at their designed RPM. Bearing failure is often caused by limited use, such as kingpins only traveling less than an inch, back and forth. The needle bearings also failed because they couldn't take the beating (load), of a tire hitting a pothole or bump at 65 MPH. Once you modified your spindle to accept the needle bearing you needed to purchase new one's to go back to the stock style bushing. They were also selling Teflon bushings at one time but they were a huge failure and literally fell apart from the pounding of road use. Sometimes trying to "reinvent the wheel" doesn't work. There are thousands of hot rods and restored early Ford's using the old style bushings.
 
I can confirm the stories of the needle bearings causing the death wobbles. I changed the kingpins on my truck and right away it started to wobble. Everything was brand new and tight. Changing the alignment had almost no effect. The only thing that stopped it was to install a steering stabilizer. But it's counter productive and makes the steering some what harder again. Next time it needs replacing I'm going back to bushings again.
 
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