PSA for those planning an engine rebuild soon

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Westy78
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PSA for those planning an engine rebuild soon

Post by Westy78 » Mon Jun 21, 2010 7:14 am

Global shortage of TypeIV main bearings......

http://forums.aircooledtechnology.com/s ... php?t=4085
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Post by sped372 » Mon Jun 21, 2010 7:27 am

You'll have to screenshot or paraphrase... those of us without membership there can't view the page...
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poptop tom
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Post by poptop tom » Mon Jun 21, 2010 8:53 am

Here ya go:

The global shortage of TIV main bearings-The answer

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For the last 18 months we have been experiencing a shortage of all different size main bearings for the TIV engine. It started with align bore bearings but has now effected the standard case sizes as well, one of the most rare bearings to find today is standard/standard.

We have exhausted every source that we have and bought all they would allow us to buy if they did have the bearings, but it appears that all the suppliers are also now out of bearings. Due to this we are no longer selling ANY of our bearings as they must be retained as reserves for our engine program, me need every set we can find to keep up with our demand for engines (which has increased!) and engine kits. Bearing sets have sold for as much as 225.00 recently for STD/STD!

No one seems to know exactly when the manufacturer will be making the bearings again, the best bit of info we have received has been 18 more months! When the economy crashed our suppliers decided to wait out the storm by living off of their reserves on many items, not ordering large quantities to replenish their shelves. They did this to keep more money in their pockets to remain in business..

Now it appears that the storm has lasted longer than most expected it would, so these suppliers either have expended all their funds to stay in business or they don't have the funds to re-order the required quantities.

The other angle of this is they are no longer interested in taking the risks associated with committing to thousands of sets of bearings being shelved for an engine thats at best 30 years old. When these bearings are ordered from the manufacturer the order is in the tens of thousands of sets, otherwise the company won't tool up to make them..

When the bearings finally do become available again probably all that will be available is the Brazilian bearings, or the Brazilian bearings that are being "re-boxed" in Germany as stated on their labels. With this new batch will come rigorous inspections and measurements to ensure the bearings haven't changed.

Main bearings are a staple item, not even the simplest engine can be assembled without them. Without these bearings the BS associated with building the TIV engine will be at the same level as that of the 356 where main bearings have been selling for 500.00/ set for over a decade IF they can be found.. Perfectly sized standard and .010 crankshafts are being taken off shelves already and turned to .020 or .030 just to fit a size that bearings can still be purchased to fit.

The future:

Quite a while ago we saw the quality dropping and wondered if this would happen. I started looking at alternative bearings based on the ID and OD sizes as well as bearing widths and crush. There are a very few sets of bearings that are even close to what we would require, and unfortunately some of those are also either hard to get or very expensive. The development associated with using these bearings is painful, because you never know if they are going to work in the desired application unless you run an engine that has them installed. This requires a special engine to be built just for this purpose and then ran hard and torn down over and over to find the proper bearing clearances and etc.

Here are the options we face:

- Hold out with hope that the bearing manufacturers will get enough of an order to make a run of bearings, hopefully sooner than 18 months from now. This also requires assumption that the bearings will be properly sized and of previous quality

- Begin development of alternative bearings to fit the TIV case and crank sizes. The biggest issue with this is the majority of the bearings that come close to fitting the application have no "thrust bearing" similar to a TIV as their thrust is set via another method. These bearings are all split shell bearings (like #2 in a TIV) and due to that would require case mods and crank mods to allow for a center thrust surface. I have already experienced a center thrust engine using a flanged crank and know the cost and complications associated with this. These complications would be on top of those required to fit the bearings to the case and to the crank.

- Begin development of a set of billet bearings machined for the 1,3 and 4 positions while utilizing some form of split shell #2 bearing. This would not be fun because we have already experienced a billet oversized #1 thrust bearing in the past with a 100% failure rate on 5 different occasions. With more effort and with the use of a broad range of materials and application we could probably find a combination that would work, but good god at how much they would cost to develop and that would be attached to their price tag at retail... 500.00 would not touch a set of these more than likely.

-Contact alternate bearing manufacturers to have bearings replicated. This option isn't something that I would be interested in at all, because its just not smart to spend that kind of money and make that kind of long term commitment when most every other part is going to hell as well.. As soon as we made these bearings we'd be faced with another product that has disappeared or turned to junk and would need to be dealt with.

As of this morning I have calls in with two different contacts that deal directly with bearing manufacturers, I figured I'd explore that anyway.

We have stepped up the exploration for alternate bearings to include some newer engines that don't have their parts displayed in the standard bearing resources. I have also increased the priority of this development to fit alternative bearings, which could even include cases that are bored beyond the normal sizes to fit an adaptor sleeve that would allow for the alternative bearing to be utilized in the TIV case.

Hang on folks, its going to get way worse before it gets any better.. If the bearing manufacturers don't deliver bearings for 18 more months a lot of people will be screwed.. Expect prices of bearings that are available to go over 200.00/ set in the near term.

If you disassemble a TIV that doesn't have worn bearings I'd retain them as they can be restored with some processes as long as their ID and ODs remain in spec.. When we first started working with the Porsche M96 engine we had to restore the bearings because the engines were so new that the parts could not be bought.. Thats when we learned about these processes and they do work well!

There is always a way around a problem, but at some point the hassles and development costs outweigh everything else. This isn't the only component thats getting hard to find or turning to junk, they are one of many.
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Amskeptic
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Post by Amskeptic » Mon Jun 21, 2010 11:24 am

poptop tom wrote:Here ya go:

The global shortage of TIV main bearings-The answer
Part II

Do not ride the clutch.
Change oil in a timely manner.
Do not lug or overrev the engine.
Do not drive if the engine is suffering.
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hambone
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Post by hambone » Tue Jun 22, 2010 7:29 am

The irony is that (at least in Portland) the vast majority of surviving buses are post '72.
We'll just have to wait and see what happens. It's hard to predict anything in these uncertain times. Perhaps this will amount to nothing.
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Sluggo
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Post by Sluggo » Tue Jun 22, 2010 11:43 am

This really sucks. I was going to rebuild my extra engine just to have a spare. Guess I should start tracking down bearings now.
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germansupplyscott
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Post by germansupplyscott » Sat Jul 03, 2010 9:47 am

we have lots of .25mm main bearings, NOS Repco brand. STD are all gone. we have some line bore bearings, but extremely low supply.

http://www.germansupply.com/home/custom ... ctid=18003

http://www.germansupply.com/home/custom ... 021+198+48
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covelo
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Post by covelo » Sat Jul 03, 2010 11:37 am

First the hops and now this.
‘80 Vanagon Westfalia - 54,400 miles
'91 Toyota Pickup (4WD long bed) - 199,960 miles
1987 Alfa Spider Veloce - 166,400 miles
2017 VW E-Golf - 5,600 miles

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