Substandard throwout bearings .

[john charlton]

I seem to recall a while back some throwout bearings which only lasted a few thousand miles were on the market . Were these "Aetna" bearings maybe made in China ? Could be original "Aetna" bearings are fine but maybe fakes were not. A buddy is about to fit an "Aetna" bearing so I said hang on a mo .

John in cool cloudy Suffolk County England ,

[J Franklin]

An original bearing made in a developed country should be OK. NOS ones preferred in my book.

[Benson]

John,

I had one 10 years or more ago that said "aetna" in small lower case letters.

Went bad in short order. Noisy like grease dried out.

I found what appears to be an old time bearing in the scrap pile at Berts.

It feels like there is rust or sand inside though.

In large letters says "AETNA BALL BEARING MANUFACTURING CO. A-7580-B3".

In the ID area there is an opening to let grease into bearing when throwout zerk is serviced.

The newer bearings, that I have seen, do not always have this opening so grease cannot get into bearing from the zerk.

About this time somebody on Ford Barn posted and said that he took one of these bearings to an oldtimer at Aetna bearing company and this fellow said the bearing did not look like one made by his company and they had reports of some body cloning the bearings.

They were even cloning the Aetna boxes!

[Benson]

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John,

For recent discussion:

See post #17 here:

https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/showt...ighlight=aetna