<VV> Blower Bearing

[airvair]

When I said "deficient" I didn't meant that it wasn't very durable, but 
rather that it was NOT designed to be easily or quickly replaced. The 
factory design reminds me of my brother's Fiat that required half the 
front suspension be removed in order to replace a 25 cent seal. I can 
only guess that neither of you have ever had a blower bearing go bad on 
you without warning "in the middle of nowhere" and had to spend a whole 
day gutting the engine top end, finding a bearing, and then searching 
around for a press just to get it replaced. Been there, done that, don't 
ever want to do it again. They're too much of a royal pain.

So what if the alternater bearing isn't QUITE as durable? At least when 
they DO go bad, I won't have to spent the whole day gutting the entire 
engine top end.

-Mark

Sadek Charles H DLVA wrote:
> Listen to Lon-he is dead on.  You can go to the alternate bearing design if
> that suits you, but remember, our ULTRA parts purveyors haven't bought a
> blower bearing ... ever.  The cars were designed in the mid-late 50s, for
> gosh' sake.  Almost 50 years since preliminary design and development,
> intermittent use, and we are complaining about bearings failing?
> 
> I have been racing the same one for 7 years - a reasonably stressful
> environment, methinks.  Survives over 7000 rpm routinely.
> 
> Remember, when new, the bearing and housing were very cheap as a unit.
> 
> I would ask, how easy is it to replace bearings/bushings in current "modern"
> automobile parts; alternators, various pumps, etc.?  Cost?
> 
> Chuck S
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: corvairs [mailto:lonwall@corvairunderground.com] 
>  Subject: Re: <VV> Blower Bearing
> 
> Well,.............I must disagree with the assessment that the "stock 
> design is deficient".  Certainly the 60-64 design uses a much smaller 
> bearing than the 65-69, but the truth is, so long as you use a quality 
> bearing in the first place, you should not have to mess with the bearing 
> for years. This is a prime example of  a part that may perform 
> flawlessly for 20 years, but upon failure, the owner finds the labor 
> excessive and therefore blames the whole situation on "poor design".
> 
> An exact parallel are the guys who pop up with the suggestion that 
> Corvair pushrod draintubes should be collapsible like VW's so that 
> replacing those neoprene O rings would be much quicker - Of course we 
> all know that the real fix is Viton O rings - not a redesign. Gee whiz 
> engineering is fun but shouldn't be confused with necessity.
> 
> The irony is, if you you go to the double alternator bearing re-design 
> you will be thankful that bearing replacement is easy - because you'll 
> be doing it a lot more often, especially if you're not VERY careful what 
> 6302 bearings you purchase. This is because this is an "A" mover bearing 
> in the rebuilding trade - As a result the market is flooded with VERY 
> cheap third world imports that are of such pathetic design they don't 
> belong in anything.
> 
>  Lon
> 
> www.corvairunderground.com