Front Wheel Bearings

[CoryN]

What is the consensus? Ball or Roller?

I have what I believe is a '63. It currently has FAG ball bearings up front. While they appear ok, I'm going to go ahead and replace everything as I go along.

What was stock on these things? For some reason I am thinking roller, which means they've been replace once already.

Rollers appear to be cheaper than balls now, I believe it used to be the other way around.

[Bryan Porter]

Balls are what came on them and
I always replace them with rollers
that I think are better.

[jspbtown]

Big fan of leaving them be. Original German ball bearings are alot of times better then the newer stuff. Clean them, inspect them, and re-pack them. I do use new seals.

[CoryN]

Thats kind of what I was wanting to do, figuring the old stuff was way better than anything I could get today - but figured that wasn't the right thing to do.

I guess I'll study them a little closer and see if they might be ok. I know that they haven't been run for the last 25 years or so.

[jspbtown]

I replace alot of things when I do a buggy....I mean ALOT of things...but certain things were just really just well made. Unless they were abused (ie: off road, ran through water, run dry) I bet they are in good shape. Clean them really well, inspect the ball bearings for pits or blueing, check the cages to make sure they are not cracked or the balls really loose (they should be loose, but you shouldn't be able to pull them out), check the races for pitting or blueing and inspect the spindle. If they all look good I say save your money and spend it else where (that is unless you have an unlimited budget....).

Of the 3 or 4 link pin front ends I rebuilt none had any sign of bearing failure.

I might have been lucky, or they might just be really tough.

[CoryN]

You know I just went ahead and bought new rear bearings without giving it a second thought - might have to check them also - although I know at least one has been recently replaced as it has the bar code inked on it, obviously that is fairly recent.