Originally Posted by victorf

Froggy, no disrespect here, you always trying to contribute to the community, that is great!

Here are a couple of things I'd noticed on your video:

1. You are right not to spin dry bearings! But notice, you already have dried out, grease less bearings buddy! If bearing set sounds like marbles in a tin can when you spin it!

2. Noticed the lips on the pully is low, C6 has higher lip tensioner pully, which is a better subsituate for better belt retention. Rockauto has AC/DELCOs for cheap!

3. If you look closely on the surface of the pulley and bearing, although your C5 is by Chevy, high possibility, your pulley, as in the case of the OEM C6 pulley/bearing, is made in China.

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Besides seals on both side of "Sealed" bearings are not meant to be remove/reinstall. Once broken, it will never be the same again! Better to inject and replenish grease with a hypo needle, its been done, without violating the seal, but process takes time! And still it is only for emergency, bottom line, if an "sealed" bearing grease needed to be replenish, then, new one is in order!

That said, since your bearing had been running dry for an unknown time, damage is already done - it doesn't take long to wear out the inner/outer race. Its not practical to repack it with grease. If you insisted on retaining the stock (Chinese) pulley, you can cross reference your bearing and get quality replacement from Japan, Europe or US. Not that expensive, easily done by pressing it out, plastic pulley body will give, then press new one in. If you are not sure about retention, put a drop of Loctite graded for bearing retention use.

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Have you ever watch the tensioner when someone rev the engine, and see how the tensioner moves under torque?

Better alternative is to rid that wobbly OEM tensioner once and for all and put on Katech in its place. However, the pulley Katech used is identical to the OEM C6 pulley - Made in China!

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Side note: Back in the '50's, Japanese products were a joke!

But US sent Mr. Deming to help Japan to help reconstruct the country after the War, Japan took Mr. Deming's Principle to heart. And today's product from Japan can rival anybody's!

Now, both S. Korea and China, instead of starting from scratch, hired consultants from US, Japan and other countries, so...Look out!

Sorry for the long wind folks!

Originally Posted by froggy47

No disrespect taken, thanks for the post. I'll respond some of your points.

1. I inspected the bearings closely (not microscope but very close) and they looked pretty good, if I had seen any visible scoring, roughness, etc. I would have tossed them.

2. Yes, the c6 design (lip) is better, no argument.

3. These oem are sourced from Canada, it doesn't show on the vid. but they were marked as such.

4. Grease injection would leave too much old degraded grease in the bearing & would possibly mix greases with different properties.

5. Reuse of the seals if "tricky" but as the "after" shot shows they looked pretty good.

6. I thought of replacing just the bearing, but it sort of defeats the purpose of my diy, which cost zero. By the time you add S&H& (maybe) tax the replacement bearing is near the cost of a (discounted) new pully from (say) Rock Auto.

7. Yep, the oem tensioner moves & if you live in the high rpm range you should replace with a manual adj. tensioner & a lipped pully.

8. I don't condem parts from any country in particular, it's all about the engineering spec. & quality control that is specified.

This is not for everyone and I am clear up front on that. Try it if you like or shake your head and move on.

I do appreciate your post and the discussion, I'm the kid that just had to take apart my toys at Xmas to see how they worked and "improve" them.

I will bet a steak dinner I get AT LEAST a couple of years more out of these say 10-20k miles plus I had fun doing it.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by victorf

Another FYI:

I just googled Amazon - my favorite place to shop w/free shipping to Hawaii!

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NTN 6203 is same as J37FE, price can range from as low as $3 ea.!

Ok, enough, I gotta go and mill the spacers!

Originally Posted by victorf

froggy47, roger that respectfully! One tinker to the other! We would have fun being neighbors.

I also loved it when people takes position and states with their degrees or XX years under their belt to emphasis!

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Another FYI:

My C6 tensioner was also sourced from Canada and the sealed bearing J37FE has Canada ID'ed on the outer race as well.

But the plastic pulley has no IDs and in every respect, both visual and dimensional wise, identical to the Katech one. Bearing used in the Katech tensioner has China ID'ed on outer race. I'd check that with Katech on this issue and Katech Jason confirmed their source is indeed from China.

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Side note:

Too much time on my hands, after yesterdays promising mockup, today, I am going old school, milling two T6 spacers to put under hood latch so as to raise back of hood for engine heat to escape.

Originally Posted by Katech_Jason

It's not like we sought out the cheapest manufacturer and went right to China. We looked for a large, credible OEM manufacturer to supply the pulley and went to a huge Canadian company. Probably the one you're speaking of. It just so happens that this pulley they source from China. Who doesn't? If we were getting poor quality from these pulleys we would switch. We buy thousands of them and rarely have a bad one. I mean very rarely and usually it's due to negligence.

Originally Posted by rbl

You really buy "thousands of them"?

Originally Posted by rbl

One would certainly think that if you're buying literally thousands of these that it would be a simple matter to buy them USA made .... are we really that bad off now that we have to go to Canada who sources China for the parts to make "stuff" for us in the USA?

It is a sad day

Originally Posted by victorf

^^"you get precision where you need it & not when you don't."

I reworded it a little different - you get precision where you need it & other areas, enough to get by!

Eccentric run outs will surely caused bearings and associated components to have an premature death! Since most consumers depends on repair shops, this is but one of the methods for manufacturers to have continue revenues after sale!

Remember the disappearance of non-interference engine designs and the dependable Maytag brand in the past?

Originally Posted by rbl

I doubt manufacturers build in obsolescence ... not buying that at all. They probably buy the cheapest parts that will produce the desired result and last the design life however. There is little sense in buying a bearing that will last forever if the shaft it is on will fail in 4 years.

I use a hypodermic needle (big one) to re-grease my wheel bearings in the spec racer. I also use synthetic grease. Don't know if you can get the needle in the bearings under discussion or not.

Originally Posted by froggy47

Thanks for the post.

I don't quite think they build in obsolescence, but they under engineer and/or cheap out on many parts. I would be interested in your protocol for on the racer, do you regrease every event?