Moss taper bearings don't fit

[Euan Hoosearmy]

@Splat - Thank you - your stub axles are slightly larger than mine, so Whoever makes the bearings for Moss has iffy quality control... SKF it is then...

[jonclancy]

Hi Folks,

Just my 2p worth:

I am assuming everyone is aware of this article?

https://www.mgexp.com/article/mg-midget ... arings.271

Front bearings have been a minefield for a while. Plenty of chat about poor quality bearing sets being supplied. Back in the day, the fitters would sling in a set of face-adjusted originals and pop the hub back on. The OEM parts were good quality. Then the original manufacture ceased. The MGOC Spares had a company face-adjusting SKF bearings for them, but that arrangement has ceased. The runs were too small. New bearings could be produced, but the minimum order was in the thousands. Not worth if for the MGOC to pursue.

Another challenge is the radius on the inner bearing where it meets the hub fillet. Original bearings, of course, had this - and fitted. So have the SKF, IIRC. The random sets currently supplied are either not face-adjusted, don’t have the correct fillet radius, or have both defects.

BTW, the inner spacer has to be exactly 1.5”. I recall lapping one of mine to make a replacement, non-original, bearing fit. If the spacer is too short, the bearings will be crushed by the hub nut and won’t last long at all.

Solution:

Harvest some bearings from an old hub by moving the inner spacer aside and using a suitable drift to get to the cut-out in the hub wall.

Contact Orinoco Bearings and buy some originals. Sit down for the price! However, he is running low on stock.

https://mgbearings.co.uk/Original-MG-Mi ... arings.pdf

Look for another taper bearing kit conversion of known good quality - there are some better quality ones around (Timken?).

I’ve just got the hubs back on my car. Only took 10 weeks! Anyway, my brakes are still shot, so I’ll be replacing the rear cylinders next. Have a full rear hub/brakes refresh kit ready to go. Just need the time to get it done!

I was thinking about trying out some taper roller bearings in some other hubs to see if there is an improvement to braking, as Jan recommends. That’ll be a couple of hundred quid plus to try…

Cheers!

[Euan Hoosearmy]

There's just so much conflicting info out there.....!

You can get taper roller bearings fairly easily at high level... The generic bearing numbers are supposedly 30205(outer) and 30303(inner). See https://bearing-king.co.uk/a/search?q=3 ... ter__d_=25. These are the numbers that Moss supply and they're mentioned in quite a few Midget forums.

What I'm not totally sure about is if they're exactly "right" as there's a whole minefield of suffixes that can be applied to bearings to make subtle changes to the tolerances.

Being a bit "tight" (I have an engine to refurb....) I don't really want to spend out on another set of bearings to find they won't go on the stubs either...

Looking at the description of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDQyvrctvRA a rather useful video, I found https://www.minimania.com/part/SUS166T/ ... et--Morris - in the comments under that, someone has put the Timken part numbers:

Inner - 05066/05185

Outer - 07097/07204

They're not cheap!! but if they fit/work..... then it's worth the money. BUT Timken also do a 30205 that's roughly the same basic dimensions for 1/3 of the price. What's the difference and is it important...?

I've also watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3YK1ggwHtY and in there he lightly sands his stub axle to get the bearings to go on.

Do I keep the "cheap" Moss (30205) bearing and sand the stubs or splash on the Timken 07097/07204 and maybe still have to sand the hubs...?

[Euan Hoosearmy]

Done some more reading and its starting to make some sense.

The 30303 and 30205 are metric bearings. The other timken numbers are imperial. The price difference between them is significant; £180 for a set of imperial, £40 for a set of metric.

The metric ones also have a higher load rating. They're a little wider and so can need a thinner castellated nut. They can also move the hub and disc out of alignment. Solution seems to be shims.

Time for a brave pill and order a set of Timken metric bearings...?

Thinking I'd better get the wire wheels checked out, as if they're past saving I'll need new hubs so no point putting new bearings in what may be scrap hubs...

[jonclancy]

Nice detective work!

I had a hub outer bearing housing that was slightly too large. I used a smear of Loctite 660 Quick Metal. It’s designed for that job (and worn machinery splines etc,), is pretty heat resistant (heat to 250*C to remove!) and some guy on eBay will sell you a small tube for under a tenner. Useful to have in the toolbox.

So maybe your hubs can be used regardless. Did you manage to salvage the old bearings, or did they pop?

[Euan Hoosearmy]

Not tried to take the old bearings out yet. I'm assuming they have the original Midget bearings in them as everything ive found so far was just lifted straight off the donor car and put on the XI. Hence all of the clean/ de-rust work I'm doing. I did find a recon rack on ebay for very reasonable money which is tempting as its one less thing to strip, de-rust and repaint.

The challenge with wire wheels is that the splines on the hub and wheel wear together and so if you mix new with old you get very rapid wear. So when you cost up some new wire wheels you have to add new hubs into the equation unless you want to be buying another set soon afterwards.

If the current set of wire wheels are too far gone for a simple strip and powder coat, a new set is supposedly cheaper than having the originals re-built.

[jonclancy]

I did just get told the same about refurbishing wire wheels. Splat’s look great on his car, and he’ll have the exact spec.

Thin rack or fat?

Interestingly, the RHP drawings show imperial ball size but metric bores. Can’t see why the metric Timken bearings would be wrong.