Question About Cutlass Bearings

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by perchance

Have a piece of schedule 80 pipe bored to size at your friendly local machine shop and they can drill and tap for the set screws at the same time. An hour to do both.

Yes, do this. .055 would be way too much clearance.

[perchance]

If you go with the non metallic bearing with epoxy you will have a have a hard time centering the bearing. .055 per side=.110 over all.

[4HMainer]

The non metallic bearing as a clearance fit in the tube will have 0.3mm max clearance, or in inches 0.012 total, 0.006 per side. They are supplied for 1.5" (38.10mm) ID tubes at 37.80 - 37.90mm OD or 1.488"-1.492"

The interesting thing if you use a clearance fit bearing rather than a press fit is you can check the alignment of the bearing carrier (struts are often out of true). With a clearance fit you can do a dry run, chock the shaft and you should be able to slide the bearing up the shaft and it should spin in the bearing carrier. If the carrier isn't true it won't slide in and it won't turn. This method will show up very small errors in carrier alignment.