Sealed Bearings

"John B." wrote in message
...
On Wed, 15 Jun 2016 19:47:14 +0100, "Ian Field"
wrote:



"John B." wrote in message
. ..
On Wed, 15 Jun 2016 02:44:59 +0100, Phil W Lee
wrote:

John B. considered Mon, 13 Jun 2016 08:54:24
+0700 the perfect time to write:

On Sun, 12 Jun 2016 22:14:20 +0100, Phil W Lee
wrote:

"Ian Field" considered Sat, 11 Jun
2016 22:12:40 +0100 the perfect time to write:



"Phil W Lee" wrote in message
news:s3polbl8655e1epl8u7jlbn94l5k5uc5nd@4ax .com...
"Ian Field" considered Fri, 10 Jun
2016 19:09:02 +0100 the perfect time to write:



"Joerg" wrote in message
...
On 2016-06-08 19:27, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 08 Jun 2016 12:45:58 -0700, Joerg

wrote:

On 2016-06-03 09:36, wrote:
On Sunday, May 29, 2016 at 11:40:18 AM UTC-7,

wrote:
With all the bikes I have I also have a bike for which I
built
the
wheels on old Campy record hub on the back and DuraAce on the
front.

After getting this bike back from a friend who was saving it
for me
while I was not in the best of health I rebuilt the wheels
with
new
balls and Campy grease.

I have mostly modern wheelsets from Campy or Fulcrum (the
people
who make the modern Campy hubs etc.) These wheels have sealed
bearings. These sort of bothered me when I saw them because
of
the
drag of the seals. You can tell simply spinning the wheels in
a
stand. But I imagined that with the weight of a person this
would
be insignificant.

For the last couple of days I have been riding the old Look
and
in
fact you CAN feel the difference between the open bearings
and
the
sealed. It does coast much further and with less noise.

Has anyone else noticed this?

From the discussion it would appear that the lost of 2% of
the
pedaling energy in the wheel bearings doesn't appear to be
noticeable
to most people.


Which brings up a point: Suppose someone will tolerate that,
which
sealed bearings are best? Requirements:

1. Industry standard, inexpensive, available everywhere.

2. Can be quickly exchanged without specialty tools.

3. The axles and hub surfaces the bearing touches aren't eaten
away.

4. No finicky alignment.

5. QR not required. Actually, not even desired.

Several of those requirements are self limiting, don't you
think?


Not really. Always look at automotive, they know how it's done.
Mainly
because if you want to sell a motor vehicle these days you must
give a
multi-year warranty. Car buyers do not put up with the typical
one
year
on
a bicycle. They also will not accept any chickening out like "Oh,
but
you
must have used it on dirt roads too much and that's not covered".


Can be quickly changed without special tools? Probably not, in
all
cases. Even in bicycle hubs that use the old cone and ball
bearings
you can't change the outer race.


The BB bearings I roached into my old student's bikes could be
swapped
out
with a simple punch and a hammer with some old jeans fabric
wrapped
around
it (didn't have a plastic hammer), and for inserting you take
sockets
and
a screw clamp. I didn't have sockets back then so I used chunks
of
pipe.
These bearings weren't meant for bicycles but worked nicely, no
more
"ka-clunk" from down there. I bought them at a Timken dealer that
catered
to industry and farmers. From what Ian described and from what I
saw on
Youtube that seems to be similar with wheel bearings.


Aren't eaten away? All joints that move wear so even a ball
bearing is
ultimately going to wear.


The surfaces the bearings reside in or on shall not move or
chafe.
With
proper bearings they won't.


Finicky alignment? if there are two bearings on a single shaft
then
they must be aligned. If they are loose, or installed on
flexible
mountings of some sort, then the entire shaft will move.


I don't know about bicycle versions but in automotive this is
often
solved
by one (or both) bearings having slight tolerance in angle from
straight.
Or at least was when I still worked on my cars to such extent.
Only
fractions of a degree can suffice. Mostly no alignment was
necessary but
sometimes there was. You had to set them so they would not bind.
But it
was less work than adjusting ye olde cone-cup deal on bicycles.

AFAIK: all ball type cartridge bearings have a very small amount of
tilt
play - its pretty much a fortuitous side effect that they can
tolerate a
small misalignment when 2 or more bearings carry a shaft.

Most multi-cylinder motorcycles have shell bearings just like cars
because
cartridge bearings in the middle of the crankshaft would be a bit
impractical. Generally small singles have cartridge main bearings -
usually
one of those will be a caged roller bearing. I always assumed that
was to
minimise crankshaft flexing.

I'm not familiar with more recent designs, but it certainly used to
be
common to have caged rollers for main and big-end bearings.
Of course, the down-side is that you must have a built-up
multi-piece
crankshaft in order to get the bearings into their correct
locations,
but you need to do that even on a single cylinder engine in order
to
fit the big-end bearing.

The big end bearing was almost always a caged needle roller bearing
as
the
big end ankle would be rather big with a roller bearing.

That would be the small end, which of course is accessible by removing
the gudgeon pin (wrist pin in USian).
The big-ends and mains, being effectively non-replaceable (well, you
could replace the crankshaft and con-rods, and sometimes get a
remanufactured unit in exchange, but it was still vastly expensive),
were usually much more substantial.

Actually not, at least, in the past, in the U.S. motorcycle world. I
have had Harley Davidson cranks (three piece) assembled for a couple
of dollars. It was some years ago now, but most of the larger shops
assembled, or maybe reassembled, press together cranks as a routine
thing.

Well, if you have a lot of harleys around that use them, then the
tooling would be a worthwhile investment. But a single journal
crankshaft isn't subject to the same twisting problems, so the fit
doesn't need to be made as tight.

And it's a hell of a lot easier pressing up a single jounal crank than
one for a 4-cylinder engine or worse, a 120deg triple!

Once on a motorcycle group, I commented that the police motorcycle on
a
50s/60s police drama was pretty good at laying smoke screen -
apparently
those old ones had plain conrod bearings and needed a high oil ratio.
Since
that would mean pretty big carburetor jets, they couldn't have been
very
efficient.

Older engines (and the oils they ran on) did have to run at higher
concentrations, but I'm surprised that even with a high concentration
it was possible to run a plain bearing, so would be interested to know
the model concerned.

I had a 40 - something Royal Enfield "Bullet" that had a plain bearing
rod bearing :-) I believe that the Bullet is still being manufactured
in India.

But is a 4-stroke, so doesn't use a total loss lubrication system
(unless it's badly defective, of course - I've come across badly
maintained bikes who's lubrication system was best described as
"external splash"!).

Ah, but I thought we were discussing 50's - 60's vintage and I
honestly can't remember ever seeing a 2 stroke motorcycle in the
1950's. In fact, until I left home to go to school in Florida I can't
remember ever seeing anything but Harley's and Indians.

When the Allies overrun occupied Europe at the end of WW2, they captured
among other things; the design for a small 2-stroke motorcycle.

AFAICR: the Harly Davidson version was named the Chipmunk.

Well amazing as it may seem, your memory is faulty. The first Harley 2
stroke seem to have had only a model number, the Harley S-126,

Unamazingly at all your brain is completely faulty - I never said it was
their FIRST 2-stroke.

And you're also too ****witted to understand the meaning of: "AFAICR".

"Phil W Lee" wrote in message
...
"Ian Field" considered Wed, 15 Jun
2016 19:50:15 +0100 the perfect time to write:



"Phil W Lee" wrote in message
. ..
"Ian Field" considered Mon, 13 Jun
2016 19:21:38 +0100 the perfect time to write:



"Phil W Lee" wrote in message
m...
"Ian Field" considered Sat, 11 Jun
2016 22:12:40 +0100 the perfect time to write:



"Phil W Lee" wrote in message
news:s3polbl8655e1epl8u7jlbn94l5k5uc5nd@4ax. com...
"Ian Field" considered Fri, 10 Jun
2016 19:09:02 +0100 the perfect time to write:



"Joerg" wrote in message
...
On 2016-06-08 19:27, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 08 Jun 2016 12:45:58 -0700, Joerg

wrote:

On 2016-06-03 09:36, wrote:
On Sunday, May 29, 2016 at 11:40:18 AM UTC-7,
wrote:
With all the bikes I have I also have a bike for which I built
the
wheels on old Campy record hub on the back and DuraAce on the
front.

After getting this bike back from a friend who was saving it
for
me
while I was not in the best of health I rebuilt the wheels
with
new
balls and Campy grease.

I have mostly modern wheelsets from Campy or Fulcrum (the
people
who make the modern Campy hubs etc.) These wheels have sealed
bearings. These sort of bothered me when I saw them because of
the
drag of the seals. You can tell simply spinning the wheels in
a
stand. But I imagined that with the weight of a person this
would
be insignificant.

For the last couple of days I have been riding the old Look
and
in
fact you CAN feel the difference between the open bearings and
the
sealed. It does coast much further and with less noise.

Has anyone else noticed this?

From the discussion it would appear that the lost of 2% of the
pedaling energy in the wheel bearings doesn't appear to be
noticeable
to most people.


Which brings up a point: Suppose someone will tolerate that,
which
sealed bearings are best? Requirements:

1. Industry standard, inexpensive, available everywhere.

2. Can be quickly exchanged without specialty tools.

3. The axles and hub surfaces the bearing touches aren't eaten
away.

4. No finicky alignment.

5. QR not required. Actually, not even desired.

Several of those requirements are self limiting, don't you think?


Not really. Always look at automotive, they know how it's done.
Mainly
because if you want to sell a motor vehicle these days you must
give
a
multi-year warranty. Car buyers do not put up with the typical one
year
on
a bicycle. They also will not accept any chickening out like "Oh,
but
you
must have used it on dirt roads too much and that's not covered".


Can be quickly changed without special tools? Probably not, in
all
cases. Even in bicycle hubs that use the old cone and ball
bearings
you can't change the outer race.


The BB bearings I roached into my old student's bikes could be
swapped
out
with a simple punch and a hammer with some old jeans fabric
wrapped
around
it (didn't have a plastic hammer), and for inserting you take
sockets
and
a screw clamp. I didn't have sockets back then so I used chunks of
pipe.
These bearings weren't meant for bicycles but worked nicely, no
more
"ka-clunk" from down there. I bought them at a Timken dealer that
catered
to industry and farmers. From what Ian described and from what I
saw
on
Youtube that seems to be similar with wheel bearings.


Aren't eaten away? All joints that move wear so even a ball
bearing
is
ultimately going to wear.


The surfaces the bearings reside in or on shall not move or chafe.
With
proper bearings they won't.


Finicky alignment? if there are two bearings on a single shaft
then
they must be aligned. If they are loose, or installed on
flexible
mountings of some sort, then the entire shaft will move.


I don't know about bicycle versions but in automotive this is
often
solved
by one (or both) bearings having slight tolerance in angle from
straight.
Or at least was when I still worked on my cars to such extent.
Only
fractions of a degree can suffice. Mostly no alignment was
necessary
but
sometimes there was. You had to set them so they would not bind.
But
it
was less work than adjusting ye olde cone-cup deal on bicycles.

AFAIK: all ball type cartridge bearings have a very small amount of
tilt
play - its pretty much a fortuitous side effect that they can
tolerate
a
small misalignment when 2 or more bearings carry a shaft.

Most multi-cylinder motorcycles have shell bearings just like cars
because
cartridge bearings in the middle of the crankshaft would be a bit
impractical. Generally small singles have cartridge main bearings -
usually
one of those will be a caged roller bearing. I always assumed that
was
to
minimise crankshaft flexing.

I'm not familiar with more recent designs, but it certainly used to
be
common to have caged rollers for main and big-end bearings.
Of course, the down-side is that you must have a built-up
multi-piece
crankshaft in order to get the bearings into their correct
locations,
but you need to do that even on a single cylinder engine in order to
fit the big-end bearing.

The big end bearing was almost always a caged needle roller bearing as
the
big end ankle would be rather big with a roller bearing.

That would be the small end, which of course is accessible by removing
the gudgeon pin (wrist pin in USian).
The big-ends and mains, being effectively non-replaceable (well, you
could replace the crankshaft and con-rods, and sometimes get a
remanufactured unit in exchange, but it was still vastly expensive),
were usually much more substantial.

Once on a motorcycle group, I commented that the police motorcycle on
a
50s/60s police drama was pretty good at laying smoke screen -
apparently
those old ones had plain conrod bearings and needed a high oil ratio.
Since
that would mean pretty big carburetor jets, they couldn't have been
very
efficient.

Older engines (and the oils they ran on) did have to run at higher
concentrations, but I'm surprised that even with a high concentration
it was possible to run a plain bearing, so would be interested to know
the model concerned.

The motorcycle in question could possibly have been a Francis Barnet.

Then it used the popular Villiers engine - the first 2-stroke to
actually supply the oil through a separate pump and along a hollow
crankshaft to it's bearings and even up through a hollow connecting
rod to the plain small end and out to the cylinder walls, although it
was still a total loss system, with oil escaping from the bearings
being (at least partially) burned.
So yes, that 2-stroke was capable of using plain bearings, and did so.
But not in an oil-in-fuel lubrication system.
So I guess we're both kind of right.
Oil in fuel just doesn't work with plains.
But plains were used in a few 2-strokes.
I should have remembered the Villiers 2-stroke pump-lubricated design,
and I'm kicking myself, as I should have - my uncle had a fanny barnet
- which was even an ex-police one (he'd had to modify it to put the
civvy spec pillion seat and rear footrests back on, which were absent
on the police spec model).

The ex-plod 750 Commando I bought years ago had to be upgraded with a
civvy
seat - but the rear pegs were on it.

In plod form is was technically a Norton Commander, and the 750 would
have been a MkII (the first version being the 650).
That would have been a much later bike though, and by that time the
police were only using motorcycles for traffic duty, not general
runabouts for "bobbies on the beat" in rural areas. So it was a much
smaller market for the manufacturers, and only the bare minimum of
modifications were made. The single seat was a requirement as the
police were never authorised or insured for passengers.
I don't know if you ever had reason to notice, but the electrical
system was upgraded to cope with the radio and additional
lights/siren, as well.
The much older Fanny Barnets and BSA bantams were bought in huge
numbers to allow ordinary country coppers to cover several villages in
their beat, but were barely able to transport the rider, never mind a
passenger! I think the 175cc Bantam was the last 2-stroke used by the
police, and the 0-60mph time of that needed a calendar to measure,
even fresh from the workshop with a downhill stretch and a following
wind!
The Commando, by comparison, was a fine motorcycle for it's time,
suitable for pursuit and escort work (although as you no doubt
discovered, a bit heavy on the maintenance requirements by modern
standards).

The back wheel was a PITA and the speedo pickup on it tended to get
misaligned and ruined.

Apart from that, everything was fine till it holed a piston. While doing the
overhaul during repair, I discovered some **** had put tyre goo in the sump
to stop oil leaks.

The pushrod tunnels had been cast too close to the holes for the cylinder
head bolts, so reassembly didn't go quite as planned.

On Thu, 16 Jun 2016 20:08:24 +0100, "Ian Field"
wrote:

When the Allies overrun occupied Europe at the end of WW2, they captured
among other things; the design for a small 2-stroke motorcycle.

AFAICR: the Harly Davidson version was named the Chipmunk.

Well amazing as it may seem, your memory is faulty. The first Harley 2
stroke seem to have had only a model number, the Harley S-126,

Unamazingly at all your brain is completely faulty - I never said it was
their FIRST 2-stroke.

And you're also too ****witted to understand the meaning of: "AFAICR".

Strange but prior to posting your little gem of wisdom you seem to
have deleted the portion of my post that demonstrated how faulty your
recollection actually is as there never was a Harley Davidson 2 stroke
motorcycle named the Chipmunk as you fantasized.

Ah well, as they say, "never attribute to ignorance what can be
explained by malice".

--
cheers,

John B.

"John B." wrote in message
...
On Thu, 16 Jun 2016 20:08:24 +0100, "Ian Field"
wrote:

When the Allies overrun occupied Europe at the end of WW2, they captured
among other things; the design for a small 2-stroke motorcycle.

AFAICR: the Harly Davidson version was named the Chipmunk.

Well amazing as it may seem, your memory is faulty. The first Harley 2
stroke seem to have had only a model number, the Harley S-126,

Unamazingly at all your brain is completely faulty - I never said it was
their FIRST 2-stroke.

And you're also too ****witted to understand the meaning of: "AFAICR".

Strange but prior to posting your little gem of wisdom you seem to
have deleted the portion of my post that demonstrated how faulty your
recollection actually is as there never was a Harley Davidson 2 stroke
motorcycle named the Chipmunk as you fantasized.

Ah well, as they say, "never attribute to ignorance what can be
explained by malice".

You combine the two.............

"Phil W Lee" wrote in message
...
"Ian Field" considered Thu, 16 Jun
2016 20:16:15 +0100 the perfect time to write:



"Phil W Lee" wrote in message
. ..

snipetty

In plod form is was technically a Norton Commander, and the 750 would
have been a MkII (the first version being the 650).
That would have been a much later bike though, and by that time the
police were only using motorcycles for traffic duty, not general
runabouts for "bobbies on the beat" in rural areas. So it was a much
smaller market for the manufacturers, and only the bare minimum of
modifications were made. The single seat was a requirement as the
police were never authorised or insured for passengers.
I don't know if you ever had reason to notice, but the electrical
system was upgraded to cope with the radio and additional
lights/siren, as well.
The much older Fanny Barnets and BSA bantams were bought in huge
numbers to allow ordinary country coppers to cover several villages in
their beat, but were barely able to transport the rider, never mind a
passenger! I think the 175cc Bantam was the last 2-stroke used by the
police, and the 0-60mph time of that needed a calendar to measure,
even fresh from the workshop with a downhill stretch and a following
wind!
The Commando, by comparison, was a fine motorcycle for it's time,
suitable for pursuit and escort work (although as you no doubt
discovered, a bit heavy on the maintenance requirements by modern
standards).

The back wheel was a PITA and the speedo pickup on it tended to get
misaligned and ruined.

I hadn't heard of that particular problem, but then, I never owned one
myself.

Apart from that, everything was fine till it holed a piston.

Low on fuel when it went?
That was often an interesting "feature" of fuel starvation, if the
engine was already running fully warmed up and at high load.

The holed piston had partially collapsed, so I suspect lubrication failure
had been the root cause. The piston was designed with relief cut outs so
that could happen without breaking up completely and causing a lot more
damage.

It got me home, and the faulty cylinder even fired if I kept the revs up.

As I mentioned in an earlier post - some **** had put tyre goo in the sump
to stop oil leaks, that probably had something to do with it.