At 06:25 PM 3/15/02 -0500, Steve Morris wrote:
>....
>The caged ball bearings that have no bias as to direction of side load
>(and in fact will tolerate *very* little side load) are generally called
>radial ball bearings. This is what Barnie and Ken are describing.
>
>Laurie is refering to ball bearings designed to take a side load as well
>as a radial load. These are called angular contact ball bearings. They
>have a much higher tolerance for side loads, at a slight cost to radial
>load rating.
>
>Thrust bearings are strictly for axial loads and have no tolerance for
>radial loading.
I second these comments, except that radial bearings often can take a fair
amount of side load. Not always a lot, but considerably more than "very
little". How much thrust load they can take depends largely on how deep
the grooves are in the raceways, and whether there is a side slot for
loading the balls.
>I haven't taken the hubs off of my A yet to swap them out, but I am
>surprised to find that there are only radial ball bearings in there. I
>expected to find angular contact bearings when I take it apart. What takes
>the side loading in the front suspension?
These particular bearings have quite deep grooves in the races, so they
will take quite a lot of thrust load in both directions. They might more
appropriately be described as unbiased "angular contact" bearings. This
type of bearing does not have any side loading slot in the races, so it can
never have a full compliment of balls. The balls are installed by moving
one race off center, then loading the balls all in one half of the
circumference, then centering the races and equal spacing the balls. This
is followed by installation of the cage which thereafter holds the equal
spacing of the balls. These bearings will in fact take a side loading just
about equal to the radial loading.
Ball bearings with a full compliment of balls can take a higher radial
load, but they also require a slot in the side of the races for ball
loading. This type is definitely a "radial bearing" and will take very
little thrust load.
Barney Gaylord
1958 MGA with an attitude
http://www.ntsource.com/~barneymg
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