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Koyo bearings any good.

Bill D

Diamond
Joined
Apr 1, 2004
Location
Modesto, CA USA
Never heard of the company before. These are made in Japan, not China. For truck wheel bearings. I would rather buy name brand like Timken SKF etc.
I looked at Kragen website and the name brand ones say global sourced. I think that is code for made in China with no oversite.
Bill D.
 
How about this: I worked for the Navy for many years and had much to do with submarine components. Naturally sub stuff has to be very quiet so waterborne noise doesn't betray the good guys to the bad guys. That means the dozens of fans, pumps, motors, etc have to have very quiet bearings.

The Navy has pursued "quiet" to a high degree. It's accomplished by "gold plating" every detail and feature of every part of every item of sub equipment, the way it's mounted, and they way it's connected to the systems. At night when the shop was very quiet, I've walked past sub motor driven apparatus running under test to full capacity and it was so quiet the only way you could tell it was running was the ID tag was fluttering in the cooling air blast.

Most noise quiet bearings used in subs were selected and tested from Koyo over the counter stock and designated NT-3. No other world ball bearing manufacurer met Koyo's every day quality of race and ball geometr, finish, cleanliness, and consistancy.

Now is twenty years later. Things may have changed but somehow I doubt it.
 
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Koyo are good.

FWIW - I first came across them in 1979, each plummer block contained an allen key to lock the grub screws.

That was radical back then - agricultural techs in the middle of hundred acre fields always :rolleyes5: have dozens of 1/16 allen keys - NOT!
 
Nothing wrong with Koyo bearings. They are used in a lot of heavy equipment apps. and work well. A lot off bearing failures are not the bearings fault, most of it is improper spec., installation, or dirt and water contamination. Very few bearings ever wear out, they get messed up by one of the above.:codger:
 
Hello Tailstock
Good point. I heard a good tip a while back to help extend the life of sealed non grease-able bearings on machines that sit for extended periods. Some farmers often wonder why the first day of the harvest season a lot of bearings tend to fail on their combines. On the last day of operation of the previous season, the machine is run for a long time & the grease warms up in the bearing, then it get parked away in the shed & sits for 11 months. All that warm grease falls to the bottom of the bearing, leaving nothing on top. Moister gets in and soon rust starts on the unprotected top part of the bearing. Next season when the machine is put back to work the bearing fails. After the grease cools, one should turn the machine over by hand to distribute the grease over the entire bearing.
 
Update about four years later, roughly 40,000 miles. I started to hear noise from my front wheels I thought it was the passengers side. Jacked it up and heard nothing they both felt tight etc. A few months later got really bad and got it towed home. drivers side wheel was cocked and loose. The outer bearing had failed the cage was in pieces with rollers falling out into hubcap.
I can not blame the bearings for the failure. I had installed new rotors that came with outer races pressed in. So I used the no name races rather then bother to switch out the factory installed ones.When I removed them I found a burr under the one that failed. It looked like someone had hit it with a punch. Maybe a hook to move the hub around the factory from a overhead conveyer? This meant the failed bearing had an outer race that was not solidly sitting down on a flat back. So either the outer race was bad or it was not installed properly. I replaced all the bearing parts on both sides just in case.
The other side looked fine but I had bought a set that included everything for both sides so I used it all.
Bill D.
PS; the removed outer races literally had no name on them.
 
Koyo is part of Jteckt, which also includes Toyoda machine tools and various automotive suppliers. I believe that Koyo took over Torrington bearings a while back. They have at least one factory in UK - I drove past the construction site many times. I don't know if Koyo bearings is the same company as Koyo electronics (PLCs etc).
 
Conclusion

Thanks for all the replies.

I did find out that Koyo are Jap manufactured, not long after making this post, so I'm not worried about using those now.

Agreed that most times it is not the bearings fault that causes the failure, I've pulled failed bearings only to find a bit of crud sitting between the outer race and the seat. Of course, this puts the out the alignment, causing wear and premature failure, hence the need for cleanliness when installing any precision part.

Also, I was recently enlightened to the fact that it was actually a certain type of seal, used in conjunction with the bearing application in this case, that used to cause the failures. A lot of aftermarket pattern seals were being recommended years back, but they have since been found to starve the bearings of oil. After a second hands on investigation with all my old engines and cranks, this does indeed seem to be the case, so I shall be using good Jap bearings, along with the correct type of seal and all should be fine and dandy.

In case you're wondering, the bearing / seal application I'm talking about here is with Yamaha 2 stroke engines, more specifically the two centre crank bearings and the labyrinth seal between them. The genuine Yam seals have raised intermittent sections around the edge of the seal that allow oil to pass trough and into the bearing races. The pattern ones have a raised, but solid area here. My mind tends to tell me that the pattern machinists must have summised that the raised parts were there simply acting as some sort of spacer, either that or they just didn't care about it's true purpose, as it was certainly easier or at the very least somewhat quicker to make them that way.


GenuineLabSeal.jpg
Superior Yamaha Type Labyrinth Seal

PatternLabSeal.jpg
Inferior Aftermarket Type Lab Seal

So that's that sorted!

Thanks folks.
 
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