Mitch,
I have been through the wringer recently on the main bearing thing.
First off, County is a distributor for King Bearings. County gets the
bearings from King and has them put their name on the bearings and on
the box, but I believe the King name is on the box somewhere as well.
King has a website, I spoke to their VP of Sales and Mktg in the US at
some point and he was helpful. I started out with King (County) but
switched to Clevite because they had bearings that were a little thicker
out of the box. Both vendors specs say the bearings should be .0720
inch thck (standard bearings that is), King came in a little under that
but in spec (ie +/- .0005"), while Clevite was just a little over
nominal, but I was able to make up about a .001" clearance that way.
Suppposedly the suggested clearance is .0017 to .0036", but I think you
will find that somewhere around .002" is a good number. This is also
based on Clevites rule of thumb that bearing clearance should be .001"
per inch. In my case, I ground down the main bearing caps to give me a
final clearance of .002". But other than that, both mfg I talked to
make their bearings the same way, meaning they are bi-metal design.
King also offered to hand pick bearings that were thicker if it would
help reduce clearance.
John Lumia - 76 TR6
Mitch wrote:>
Just received a set of .020 over AE Hepolite pistons from TRF along with
King small & large bearings. So far everything looks likes nice stuff. I
was disappointed not being able to locate Vandervil bearings but TRF
said the Kings are a good replacement. I was also told to avoid Country
brand. No specific reason , just not the same quality as Hepolite.
I'll let you know in about 2 months.
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