The 'E' Type Forum

Hi All......looking through Chris Vines Blog http://etype.chrisvine.com/tag/steering/ he replaced the bearings in the steering column..looks like he used original type plastic cage tapered roller bearings....any one used these...where did you get them from....looked at some of the usuals they only have a solid type bearing....Thanks... Steve

Are you sure its the bearings Steve?

When my S2 steering wheel started moving up and down it turned out it was the wavy washer that had broken up. Once that was replaced all was fine.

James

Hi James ....its not actually for my car....but yes its the bearings..they are out and in bits....Steve

So just to bump this up....I thought there wers lots of you out there that have done full rebuilds....did you forget the steering column ...Steve

There aren't any taper roller bearings in a series 1 steering column. No such luxury, I'm afraid.

Regards

Were in the S2 section.........for S1 your fortunate.........Steve

Hello Steve,
I doubt that you will find them; I've been searching for them for years. As an alternative, I've used turcite, an anti friction, high load bearing material used on the slide-ways of better quality machine tools, in particular, CNC machines having Box slide-ways.

Regards,

Bill

I was just responding to your bump of this topic by saying that there are a lot of rebuilt cars but they don't all have taper roller bearings in the steering column. Therefore there's a high chance that nobody knows the answer to your question.

It's interesting that my '69 420 has plastic bearings too.

Regards

Thanks Stuart..your probably correct..xj6 also have then.. Bill..thanks for the info...will keep looking but will probably go down the route you suggest...Steve

Hello Steve,
If you happen to find a supply, do Post it here. However, my enquiries have been rather thorough and I've not come up with anything.

Turcite is a rather good solution. It comes in many thicknesses and is machinable and has the advantage of not brinelling the surfaces of the cones; in fact, it tends to cushion shock loading. There is a minimum size sheet that can be purchased from suppliers and its expensive. Accordingly, given the small quantity required to do the job, seek to purchase a scrap from a Machine Tool Reconditioner.

In use, its glued to one of the surfaces. The best surfaces to deal with in the Steering Column assembly are the male cone surfaces. Its wrapped around the cone as you would wrap an ice cream cone and then trim to size once the glue has set. This can be done using as Box Cutter or razer blade.

If you decide to go this way, I'll let you know the glue to use. I'm not in the shop now and I can't recall the specification.

Regards,

Bill

I bought SNG Barratt replacements but they turned out to be solid types. My lower plastic cage taper needle roller item had a weird effect where it was bearing on plastic instead of the needles, because some of the cage had become swollen as if by fire or chemical attack. Definitely no fire ever in my car, and the cage being probably nylon very resistant to chemicals.
Conceivably off another S2?
Anyway I trimmed excess plastic with a scalpel and it works well.
I found some 2:1 shrink on sleeving that would only just stretch over the lower mounting flange and shrink over the collapsing cage to seal it from dust etc.

Steve, have you searched bearing suppliers?

If you can get the bearing dimensions, folks like this:

https://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/Produ ... index.html

may be able to help. Just sticking the dimns into the search at the top will show you.

Thanks Jerry....been in touch with a few bearing suppliers...they have nothing like it.....Steve

Hi Steve when I restored my steering column, imperial bearings weren’t available I found some metric needles that were as near as dam it the same diameter however they were 3mm longer than the originals I carefully ground down each bearing to the correct length, providing you replace all the needles this method worked perfectly just make sure your sprung preload washers are in good order.
Regards, Julian.

Hi Julian...not sure were talking about the same thing....the upper bearing im talking about is tapered on the inside and outside....it is a plastic cage with metal rollers inside.....so i need the cage..or similar complete bearing....the usual suppliers have a replacement part but its not rollers it solid....this is a photo from Chris Vines Blog the plastic cage,s seen at the bottom just left and right of center....Steve

Hi Steve, that’s the same as my column, I reused the plastic cage as the old needles just press out and refitted my modded needles into the old cage, it was simple todo and only took me a couple of hours to compleat.
Hope this helps, Julian.

Hi Julian...its the plastic thats broken up that needs replaceing.....Steve

Hi Steve, apologies didn’t realise it was the plastic cage you wanted to replace, cage must be common to Jaguar steering column of late 60s early 70s. Good luck with your search.
Julian.

Just a query Julian, in case I or A N Other needed to do it;

Were the needles you used tapered or same diameter on the full length? They should be tapered I would have thought, though only slightly, maybe unmeasurable

Hi Jerry....the plastic cage is tapered on the inside and outside so is a bit unusuall.....the needle rollers are parallel as far as im aware...Steve