Photo of said roller assy and race to fit



Regards

Sorry my clutch slipped, lol, thought they used the thick bushing, they updated to the thin ones now, easier to remove to.

Any way to drill for a grease fitting to allow relube of the roller bearings in the future?

Sure just thread, 1/4" pipe, into the two small covers on top of the strg clutch cover and install a grease fitting in each.

Not that easy, still need a seal of some sort, maybe o-ring to direct grease or oil to the bearings otherwise it will just flow out of the gap between the cover and the bearings. That being said anything is an improvement over no lube now.

When I did my D4 7J I found NOS needle bearings from a bearing supplier 2 hours away, they are out there, just need the right parts person to look for you.

I assume you tried Florin Tractor Parts already?

My 75 year old old Mechanic buddy Joe told me a interesting story about oriental bearings, he has done a lot of Cat repairs over the years, on hundreds of machines of all sizes, he did a D2 years ago and for the first time used bearings supplied by the local bearing shop to rebuild the final drives and cross shaft, usually he always used Cat bearings but the Dealer is 1,000 miles away and time was tight to get the tractor done, so he used the oriental made bearings supplied by the bearing shop.

He always test drives machines he has worked on, he said he got 100 yards up the track from his workshop when the back end of the D2 locked up, one of the aftermarket bearings had collapsed, and when he went back to the bearing shop to complain about having to pull the machine apart a second time, they told him he must of screwed up fitting them, needless to say that was the last time he used non Cat bearings on a customers machine.

It might cost $200 more on a old Cat to use proper Cat bearings over aftermarket, but it used to be that was money well spent for piece of mind, but with so much stuff being made in China and India these days, I'm not so confident that extra cost is worth it. Obviously there are some very good oriental bearing makers, as good as anyone in the world, but there are also some very poor quality bearings out there too, from oriental suppliers.

In my D4 7J rebuild I was supplied steering clutch thrust bearings made by a company in Turkey by the well known aftermarket parts supplier here in Oz, when I questioned them at the time they said they had received no complaints about them, but I couldn't help thinking how many had they actually sold till then, maybe mine were the first set out the door, interestingly that tractor has a noisier thrust bearing on one side!

I had to rebuild the water pump on the D2 and decided to save a few bucks and buy Cat Classic Parts bearings for the job, they were about half the price, like $15 each compared to $38 each for regular Cat bearings, but when I got the new bearings I immediately noticed they had 2 fewer balls in them, like 7 balls instead of 9, and I thought Mike, do you really want to risk seeing a spinning radiator fan go flying out the side of that D2 spearing someone standing nearby?????

NUP, so I put those Cat Classic bearings on my shelf and ordered Cat regular bearings and fitted them, I'll do you a cheap deal on those Cat Classic bearings Tony, they haven't done any work.....