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TR5 & TR6 AE Main & Big End Bearings


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TR5 & TR6 AE Main & Big End Bearings

If you have been waiting for High Quality OE standard bearings, then your wait is over! In conjunction with the TR Spares Development Fund (SDF), RevingtonTR have tracked down the original manufacturer of these bearings and they have now been re-introduced to the product line. These bearings are currently available only from RevingtonTR.

 

The range extends from standard size to 0.060" undersize for both Big and Main Bearings. The part numbers follow the original AE numbering system; we offer a standard quality bearing set (not AE manufacture) which is adequate for mild operation and our high quality sets (AE manufacture) using the same number suffixed ‘HQ’. Whilst Triumph originally sold bearing shells individually, we now only sell sets. We only offer Thrust washers in standard grade as they are subject only to light duty; performance improvement does not affect the thrust washers.

 

If you are a member of the TR Register, RevingtonTR are offering these bearings at a 20% discount until the end of August 2014 or until stock runs out. If you are a TR member we will need your Membership Number when placing the order. Stock is limited, so please get your order in early.

 

Also suitable for Triumph 2000, 2.5, Vitesse and GT6.

 

See the RevingtonTR website for further details.

 

Some may accuse me of blatant advertising, but I must point out that the SDF has provided some funding to Revington TR and that owners of 6-pot cars have been looking for such bearings for some time - there's even a posting on another club's website on this very subject.

 

Ian Cornish

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TR5 & TR6 AE Main & Big End Bearings

I

 

Some may accuse me of blatant advertising, but I must point out that the SDF has provided some funding to Revington TR and that owners of 6-pot cars have been looking for such bearings for some time - there's even a posting on another club's website on this very subject.

 

Ian Cornish

Ian

It is,may I ask why only one supplier?

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The SDF can, has and does perform a useful role as a 'pump primer', assisting on our behalf with the often very considerable costs involved in commissioning a reproduction run of particular parts.

 

A given supplier may not be able to justify the investment involved as a normal commercial exercise, but a loan from the SDF can bridge the gap and turn a pipe dream into a practical proposition.

 

However you cut it, that's a significant financial gamble for any supplier - and the only realistic way to justify the gamble is to be able to offer a degree of exclusivity to the commissioning supplier.

 

As far as the TR Register is concerned, that system has proved a worthwhile principle for the past 40 years.

 

It ain't broke, etc etc . . . .

 

Cheers

 

Alec

Edited by Alec Pringle
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Patience, Rob - one thing at a time!

Neil needs to recoup his outlay on the bearings for the 6-pot engines, and repay the SDF's loan.

 

If this is the success which we hope it will prove to be, I feel sure that the 4-pot engines will be considered in due course.

 

I feel that Alec has explained the rationale behind the single supplier route. Note that the reproduction of the TR4A cylinder heads (Moss) and the TR4A/5/250 sidelamp assemblies (RevingtonTR) were organised in a similar fashion.

 

Ian Cornish

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Checked the website and no mention on either the "new announcements" nor under the parts section for TR6 (all bearings listed are from County). Hope the info (and pricing) is up soon.

 

For those involved in this project...what would the difference be between the King tri-metal bearing available today vs these new tri-metals from AE? Just curiosity....

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Checked the website and no mention on either the "new announcements" nor under the parts section for TR6 (all bearings listed are from County). Hope the info (and pricing) is up soon.

 

For those involved in this project...what would the difference be between the King tri-metal bearing available today vs these new tri-metals from AE? Just curiosity....

 

 

Link to the Revington Newsletter, which has links to the website for the bearings.

 

http://revingtontrltd.cmail1.com/t/ViewEmail/y/F7515226DE7EB269/34718B6166A1B5712A1BF84ACBDD178B

 

Cheers

 

Graeme

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Neil,

 

the original purpose of the New Spares Fund was to make loans to Cox & Buckles, as it then was, to facilitate the purchase of 'new old stock' spares as BL cleared out the old Stanpart stuff.

 

In the fullness of time, BL having passed into history along with Standard and Triumph and all the old factory parts, the NSF evolved into the Spares Development Fund . . . . function as explained in my previous post.

 

No question of becoming a loan source, that was the expressed raison d'etre from the start.

 

The SDF, like the NSF before it, is not a company. It is a trust fund administered by trustees for the benefit of the membership of the TR Register, and in particular those members whose personal loans provide the working capital of the SDF.

 

Unlike company directors, trustees do not enjoy the status of limited liability, they are ultimately personally accountable - with all the attendant liabilities and responsibilities that implies. To the best of my knowledge, neither trustees nor those occasional informal assistants to the NSF/SDF such as yours truly, have ever so much as drawn a bean in expenses, let alone been remunerated for their efforts.

 

Hardly surprising then that there has never been exactly a queue of potential trustees clamouring to assist ?

 

Snide sniping might possibly prove to be an effective means of knocking the SDF on the head, but I fail to see how that benefits anyone.

 

If there is a specific complaint from any member, then spit it out in public - plain and simple.

 

Cheers

 

Alec

Edited by Alec Pringle
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my view may not be popular but WELL DONE Tr Register for making these available. we dont have a major manufacturer to support us (eg aston martin/ ferrari) and for those 'fortunate' enough to have such support you should see the prices they charge.

 

AND as alec says the trustess have direct responsibility for the financial transaction - so no City behaviour !

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I sent the queries from YankeeTR5 and Peter W to Neil, who has responded thus:

 

I cannot tell you what goes into the making of a King tri-metal bearing, it is likely to be a copy of the well-known original tri-metal concept pioneered by Vandervell and taken up by AE.

What we (RevingtonTR) are offering is the correct specification parts made with the correct specification material by an original (not after-market) manufacturer.

Vandervell is owned by Mahle not AE.

I'll leave 6-pot owners to comment on the difference(s) and benefits from using these bearings.

Ian Cornish

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The King bearings have a nickel layer next to the steel backing and the copper/lead alloy is sintered, this wears through to the abrasive nickel layer and munches the crank, true VP2s have a cast copper/lead alloy on the steel backing and an indium overlay, these bearings are of a stronger construction and able to withstand a higher loading,however their surface is softer and thus kinder to crankshafts, there is quite a bit of information about the differences between the two manufacturing processes on The Roadster Factory's website.

Cheers Rob

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King have never been unduly coy about the metals in their bearings -

 

" Copper-Lead on Steel (CP) with .001″ Copper-Lead-Tin Overplate. (Tri-metal bearing) "

 

whereas Vandervell claim

 

" hardened steel backing, and proprietary cast bronze substrate and lead/indium overlay "

 

It's worth remembering that the Triumph sixes at full chat are, by virtue of their long stroke, achieving some remarkable piston speeds - by the standards of the 1960s, racing speeds rather than road. Not a lot of use putting crapiti bearings in there . . . . .

 

There are a number of manufacturers of high quality bearings around the world - manufacturing technology has moved on somewhat in the course of the past half century, and it would be all to easy to let bullshit baffle brains.

 

Mind you, I'm told that decorating their garage walls with empty boxes of motor sport calibre component is the new bling - for the Sunday afternoon cream tea run merchants.

 

Cheers

 

Alec

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Hi Alec,

Just a quick follow up and a Thank You. I should have said that I'm on the side of being very happy that these have been redone, irrespective of whats available out there. Supporting the efforts of reproducing NLA parts, even if its to keep the mechanism of "reproducing NLA parts" exercised is pretty essential to keeping these cars on the road today and into the future (and I'm not saying that the bearing reboot is simply an exercise)

 

I learned something interesting btw: 1)the PI cars use different bearings (at least by Part #, which implies some type of difference) then their NA counterparts. This should create an interesting discussion on this side of the pond.....

 

Thanks again to you and your fellow trustee's for the passion you show for our cars.

 

Cheers....Dan

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Just read the Revington newsletter, so these are equivalent to but not Vandervell VP2, seems a shame to have gone to all the trouble and not gone to Vandervell (Mahle Motorsport), after all they are producing VP2s for MGs and BMC A series engines, amongst many others . Ian, Neil if those 4 pot bearings come out as Vandervell VP2 then I'll be ordering the first full set in standard size please.

Cheers Rob

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So .......

 

These new bearings are identical to VP2 in all respects except the aren't made by Vandervell. Is that a fair summary?

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Just read the Revington newsletter, so these are equivalent to but not Vandervell VP2, seems a shame to have gone to all the trouble and not gone to Vandervell (Mahle Motorsport), after all they are producing VP2s for MGs and BMC A series engines, amongst many others . Ian, Neil if those 4 pot bearings come out as Vandervell VP2 then I'll be ordering the first full set in standard size please.

Cheers Rob

 

 

 

 

And as we all know the MGB BE bearing is wider and fits the TR5/6 con rod. Then a touch of work is needed though to accept the wider bearing plus an appropriate diameter crank pin grind.

Bit like Jag con rods fitting TR 4 cyls.

Cheers

Peter W

Edited by BlueTR3A-5EKT
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Bit like Jag con rods fitting TR 4 cyls.

 

Cheers

Peter W

And I always thought that was an urban myth, ..... so it really wouldn't be a big step for Mahle to produce bearings to fit our cars, they just need to be convinced of the numbers required, we need more drive it days!!

Cheers Rob

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  • 7 months later...

The King bearings have a nickel layer next to the steel backing and the copper/lead alloy is sintered, this wears through to the abrasive nickel layer and munches the crank, true VP2s have a cast copper/lead alloy on the steel backing and an indium overlay, these bearings are of a stronger construction and able to withstand a higher loading,however their surface is softer and thus kinder to crankshafts, there is quite a bit of information about the differences between the two manufacturing processes on The Roadster Factory's website.

Cheers Rob

 

Sorry to wake up an old thread, but just having had a munched crank I am trawling for info on bearings for the new crank, when I found Rob's post. As I was using King bearings I have just had a good look at the shells from the munched journal and yes they have worn through the copper/lead layer to the backing. Up to now I thought that the crank had chipped next to the oil hole and that had chewed the bearing, but now I'm wondering if it was the other way round.

 

I'm not saying that the King's are bad as I was running 6.5K+ RPM regularly (if not for very long) and its only 1 journal that went the others still look good, so the cause of the failure may be something else (as yet unfound) But it was interesting that the wear was exactly as Rob described.

 

As I'm now in the market for new shells all round and will skip using King again (which may be doing them down without valid reason), so any feedback on competition use of the new AE VP replacements?

 

Also anyone any experience with the ACL Duraglides, the people who are going to regrind the new crank are heavily pushing them from their competition experience.

 

http://www.enginepartsuk.net/acl

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Hi, in view of how you intend to use the engine then Vandervell VP2's every time, NOS from Ebay, (keep checking from time to time), or try the American College Prof. Basil Adams (Google Basil Adams) who has spent the last few years buying up the Universe's supply of Vandervell shells, not cheap, but he does have a lot of stock.

Cheers Rob

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I'm not saying that the King's are bad as I was running 6.5K+ RPM regularly (if not for very long) and its only 1 journal that went the others still look good, so the cause of the failure may be something else (as yet unfound) But it was interesting that the wear was exactly as Rob described.

 

 

I was in the same situation some time ago.

Wanted to buy the best and ordered Tri-metals from King.

Got them and the fun started with a Spitfire 4-cylinder set and two sets loose.

Checked what was on the shells and found they are stamped the same like cheap Countys.

Some numbers are different and I could not sort out why.

 

So the first idea is to check if really all the bearings are the same because I had the same problem

when ordering another set elsewhere. Got again a Spitfire pack and a set loose that already was hurt

because not packed properly. Maybe such a damaged set found its way into your engine?

 

Had a lot of mail contact and was very unhappy with the situation.

Ended up with County and King is the same company, all made in Israel.

They are stamped the same on the back if 2-metal or 3-metal.

What differs is only the date of production coded.

Very bad if you want to identify what bearing you have!

 

I grinded some of them to find if they are real 3-metals.

I could do that because some are already spoiled from bad packing

and so I did no longer have two 6-cylinder sets anyway.

Costs a lot of money and left me with the nasty feeling

that these bearings maybe a cause for defects.

At the end I trow away the loose shells and used some from the two packed 4-cylinder sets.

 

King or County took my advice and told me they will mark in future what is what on the back.

Anyway to combine a 6-cylinder set from 1,5 Spitfire sets is not something to give me

confidence and maybe the failed bearing was also a loose one added from elsewhere

and maybe it was damaged and there is a chance that it is another quality.

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