Posted by Gordon on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 at 3:31AM :
In Reply to: Anyone have a source for DODGE bearing blocks ? posted by Gordon on Monday, May 02, 2005 at 11:25AM :
Well now I'll keep an eye on e-pay and I will try the local bearing place too in case they have a direct replacement - I'm not keen to try and shim down one of yours, Russ...
I thought it was cracked too, but the dull section is where it had been cut away for some sort of anti-rotation pin (to stop the bearing turning in the housing rather than the bearing halves turning with each other)
The other thing I noticed is that the parts list casts up for these bearing blocks to be 'steel' but this one is fairly obviously grey cast iron which isn't really right for a component that sees impact loading when a rail wheel hits something.
I might just check the pair on the rear axle to see if they are steel and the front axle ones have been replaced with cheaper cast units - as then it would make sense to buy steel ones rather than iron ones for the front too. You can see the amount of imapct this thing took from the bend in the main front rail cross-axle - that's 2.25" steel tube with only a 1" hole through it so it didn't just bump into something.
Off to e-pay to search - thanks again.
Gordon