Bearings or Bushes

wurlzy

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Hi all,

Just a quick question to see who's done what, which you prefer and why?
Bearing kit or the bronze bushes for the swing arm.

Advice is appreciated.

Regards, Steve - 79 Special
 
I did the bushing but to tell the truth I don't really push an XS650 hard enough to have a hard opinion of how great it is. The 10,000 mile 83 Heritage Special I put the bushings on needed it done really bad the crap plastic bushings were allowing about 3/8" of slop side to side at the rear wheel.. Other XS650's I have do not have this near this much slop even with higher miles. I doubt many could tell the difference between the two set ups. I guess if you think you will rack up a lot of miles the needle bearings should hold up longer but how many miles will most of us put on an XS? A real set up would involve tapered rollers but THAT would involve major frame changes.
 
A bit of because that's what they use now. And a bit of because you can pretension them to what ever you would like and reset the tension removing any play that develops.
The tapered rollers are also larger to take big loads with less chance of failure. They also handle loads in three dimensions instead of the needles two. In my limited sample of one bike done so far and by the manual, the side play is to be adjusted with shims in the stock set up. the bike I rebushed required an extra spacer (washer) to reduce the side play without putting what I felt would have been excessive bending stress and misalignment of the frame spigots to the axle by the amount of movement that would have been required to take up the slop otherwise. I hope that long winded run is clear enough. Agree, disagree? Why?
 
A bit of because that's what they use now. And a bit of because you can pretension them to what ever you would like and reset the tension removing any play that develops.
Uhmmmm... I don't think that's absolutely true. you may still need shims, depending.

The tapered rollers are also larger to take big loads with less chance of failure.
Larger rollers have a downside though - with a larger diameter, you're rolling back and forth over the same space more, thus uneven wear. With the smaller needles, you have more overlap thus more even wear. And if you have smaller needles, you're spreading the load over more rollers.

They also handle loads in three dimensions instead of the needles two.
I think the word you're looking for is "vector", not "dimension". And, in this case, they're actually worse, since three vectors are involved. Up, down, and sideways. With needles, you're only dealing with up and down - the spacing/end is only for locating, and not involved in actually holding the bearing in place, and overcoming forces trying to squeeze the bearing out the end.


In my limited sample of one bike done so far and by the manual, the side play is to be adjusted with shims in the stock set up. the bike I rebushed required an extra spacer (washer) to reduce the side play without putting what I felt would have been excessive bending stress and misalignment of the frame spigots to the axle by the amount of movement that would have been required to take up the slop otherwise.
Oh no. I entirely agree that general maintenance is very much easier with tapered vs needles. Which is probably a big reason in going to them in modern bikes. But a lot of design goes into "how much quicker/easier is it to assemble on the line/work on in the shop" vs "what is the *best* design".
 
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