Has anyone identified the equivalent bearing part #s to rebuild a diff using Timken bearings? I've heard they are better AND cheaper than the ones from Mazda dealers.

BTW, I emailed Timken and got no response.

Thanks for any help!

Bill

 

lol... a little off topic... but where i work... we provide the steel for timken...

im sorry im no help

 

 

I'll go one better- our fleet of aircraft use Timken wheel bearings that have to spool up to about 180 mph in a split second on landing. Try doing that in your car, lol...

 

just goes to show what kind of steel we have to produce.... super high quality

 

I just rebuilt my diff with all new MAZDA parts. Price for bearings and crush sleeve was ~260 (with MAZDACOMP)

 

I'm planning on doing this one day too, Banzai, which parts did you have to replace to basically "overhaul" it?

 

If anyone's interested, I heard back from Timken and now have the part #s for the 6 bearings required for the upgrade.

Bill

 

i don't know if it would be considered an upgrade. back when i worked for Jeep we had bearing failures from Timken on almost a daily basis but every manufacturer had their problems, i think the Timken bearings were simply loaded too tightly and caused the chrome races surfaces to flake off.

Timken is decent but by no means is it a bulletproof bearing.


i would be slightly concerned about the materials used but concerned about the setup procedures more, i have never had a differential i built fail yet and i have used many makes of bearings.

even the 7 1/2" stock diff in my S10 with 33" swampers hasn't failed yet after it spit out a pinion tooth 5 years ago and i beat the snot out of it.

 

What about compared to the NSK and Koyo bearings that came stock?

Would you recommend that I just get bearings through the Mazda dealer?

Any brand that you do recommend as better than any of the above?

I'd tend to agree that the biggest factor is setup.

Thanks,

Bill

 

Crush Sleeve
All Seals
All Bearings
NEW Mazda LSD Unit (there are no more in Mazda's Inventory)
4.3 Ring and Pinion which was Isotropically Super-finished and Cryo'd

Pinion was set up according to MAZDACOMP's specs by someone with more experience doing it than I.