USA made bearings?

[5030]

Somewhat similar note.
Looking for a couple of axle seals for a Horse tiller, 1.500 x 1.000 x 0.375 double lip I would have preferred but would have taken anything. Called three local suppliers....nothing, minimum 10 day delivery if they even offered to get them in. One had the nerve to say they'd order it in but I'd be paying shipping. It's not even like it's an odd size seal.
Unfortunately I had to get them off Amazon so they're probably Chinese junk but they'll be here in less than a week. Least when they fail, they're easy to get at.

Don't hold your breath on sealing, if, the tine axle is at all worn, the seals will leak. Been there and done that and used Corn Head Grease instead of gear oil.

 

[Shenandoah MF1760]

"Made in the USA" can mean any part of a product. It might simply be the box it comes in.
Notice that the "Made in USA" tends to be printed on the box, not on the bearing.

True.

A former company I worked for had their manufacturing moved to Mexico after being bought out.

However, since they also sold some of their product to the nuclear power industry those components while made in Mexico were then assembled in the USA so they could label them "Assembled in the USA"

Model numbers also had an "N" attached so you knew it was the more expensive "Nuclear" version of the same thing everyone else got.

 

[Shenandoah MF1760]

Candidly, I get tired of poor spelling,

Not to sidetrack the bearing discussion, but the browser attachment Grammarly does a good job of not only showing and correcting spelling but also punctuation as well.

 

[redmt]

I never had an issue with timken, skf, nachi. I rely more on who makes them as opposed to where with the exception of anything made in China.

 

[MHarryE]

Brand name is no guarantee that the bearing is made in that manufacturer's home country. Our plants used a rather expensive Timken bearing (about $500 each) in 4 of our plants. One sharp eyed inspector noted on an incoming delivery it was Made in China instead of the normal Made in Italy. Alarm bells ring, bring in Timken rep with data showing how before moving production of this bearing to China, they went through intensive testing, had their employees monitoring every step of the process from steel making (except for user errors, most bearing failures are due to material inclusions) to final assembly, packaging and shipping. Our company keeps excellent records - we found no change in failure rate following the change in source country - virtually zero with thousands of these bearings used yearly. Only one data point, but labeling anything built in China as complete junk is wrong. Another example, how many of you use iPhones? A major screwup of mine was dropping my iPhone out of my pocket and running over it with my mini-excavator and it still worked for a couple years until replaced due to being obsolete.

 

[Renze]

Alarm bells ring, bring in Timken rep with data showing how before moving production of this bearing to China, they went through intensive testing, had their employees monitoring every step of the process from steel making (except for user errors, most bearing failures are due to material inclusions) to final assembly, packaging and shipping.

The French plant of wheeled excavators for Cat couldnt keep up with demand, so they moved assembly of the most popular model, the M314, to China where their tracked excavators are made too.

A service tech of the Dutch importer said they noticed the warranty and service calls of the Chinese assembled M314 drop considerably below the French made M315,16,17,18, 20 and 22.

You just got to be there to oversee the quality in an Asian factory, but when you do, an Asian worker will do exactly as told, how told and when told, whether its monday morning or friday evening and whether their child is ill or if they had a good time with the missus before going to work.

 

[mrmikey]

Don't hold your breath on sealing, if, the tine axle is at all worn, the seals will leak. Been there and done that and used Corn Head Grease instead of gear oil.

I was thinking of going that route but the seals were the original and partially pushed out so I figured mehhh, I'll give it a go.
The thing holds 9 liters of oil so it'll be a few tubes of grease for sure although I don't imagine you'd be filling it with 9 liters of grease. If you had to guess, 1/2 the amount?

 

[Agvg]

The French plant of wheeled excavators for Cat couldnt keep up with demand, so they moved assembly of the most popular model, the M314, to China where their tracked excavators are made too.

A service tech of the Dutch importer said they noticed the warranty and service calls of the Chinese assembled M314 drop considerably below the French made M315,16,17,18, 20 and 22.

You just got to be there to oversee the quality in an Asian factory, but when you do, an Asian worker will do exactly as told, how told and when told, whether its monday morning or friday evening and whether their child is ill or if they had a good time with the missus before going to work.

Well, better quality is not always up to the workers, a Chinese factory might be newer, have much better quality control and so on.

And if your quality is so tied up to the day to day performance of humans then you have a problem.

The only way to really improve assembly is to get rid of as many manual processes as possible.

 

[Renze]

Well, better quality is not always up to the workers, a Chinese factory might be newer, have much better quality control and so on.

Quality control is still a human activity.
When i order a custom excavator slew bearing in Southern Germany, right next to the Czech border, our supplier calls me and tells a dowel hole is .053mm out of tolerance. "Do we need to rework that, or do you give permission to carry on ?" Then i tell them its to center the inner gear teeth of the slew bearing to the pinions, which after 32.000hrs of offshore dredging, have more play than 0.053mm so we dont bother. "All right, could you then please write me a short email which says that you accept this deviation ?"

We, as Dutchmen, often wonder about Germans and their procedures. We are better in bespoke excavator modification than the Germans because we think out of the box more easily. But when it comes to quality procedures, the Germans are right at it !!

And if your quality is so tied up to the day to day performance of humans then you have a problem.

Yup, but thats France. The Belgian factory of loaders and tracked excavators in Gosselie is already closed and moved to China. I think 6 years ago now. The joke is that French and Belgians are on strike so often that they dont have time to take all their payd holidays

The only way to really improve assembly is to get rid of as many manual processes as possible.

The Chinese, or workers from most Asian cultures, prove that they can follow orders as good as automated processes. Workers in Southern Europe (or any country with a Romanic language, generally) have different work ethics than where Germanic languages (German, English, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish) are spoken.

 

[pghyndman]

Apologies if this was already mentioned, as I've not read the entire thread. I use Bearing Buddies on all my trailers to ensure the bearings always are sufficiently greased:

Genuine Bearing Buddy

The original and still the best! Millions of bearings owe their lives to it. With Genuine Bearing Buddy your trailer, hubs and axles will always be protected.

www.bearingbuddy.com