Pinion Assembly

[steve davidson]

Did you get the AC bearings from a bearing factor or similar? The ones Austin used on all but a few late cars are narrower on the outside race than the "off the peg" AC bearings. If  you have the standard width bearings, as well as that gap, the pinion mesh will be different by the difference in the width of one of the bearings.

The ones that Seven Workshop (and others) sell are ground down to the correct width.

https://www.theaustinsevenworkshop.com/p...-ac-thrust

Hi Stuart,  The bearings came from our Club supplier here in Queensland.  I think I'll pop the bearings back out for measure.  Thanks for the advice.

Steve

Hi Steve, the specially machined pair with narrow outer rings are held in the Melbourne Club Spares as Part Number 0394a - sold only as a pair.   

Tony.

Hi Tony,

Thanks for the notes above.  I guess you know Trevor who looks after our parts up here, I'm pretty sure the set he gave me came to him as "second hand" from someone who'd had them and then not used them.  So their exact origin is unclear.  I pulled them back out again tonight and found that the outer race of the new ones are 0.626" while the old ones are 0.592", so that seems to explain the reason for the gap between the locking ring and the torque tube body.  The both look to have the same width.  Thoughts?  Is this gap an issue and why do the have to be an exact match?

With respect to the orientation of the bearings I'm going to say there is a one face that is "thicker" than the other, i.e., the balls could not be extracted past this "thick" face but they can be pulled out past the "thin" face (if you take the carrier with it).  The "thicker" face has the bearing ID stamped on it.
When I pulled the unit apart these "thicker" faces sat back to back, I asssume this is the correct orientation and the inner distance piece on the pinon end and the bearing retaining nut on the input end ensure that the bearings can not seperate.  Sound right?

Thanks