Bearings

Overview

The pedal car as new would have been fitted with 120 roller bearings for the axle, crank rod ends and wheels. By the time I had the car one of the two axle bearings attached to the bodywork was worn and eventually my father replaced it with a welded in ball race. I used the car so much that the new bearing inevitably wore again, rusted and collapsed. By this time the roller bearings on the other side and the wheel bearings had worn badly enough to start to fall out.

Worn rear axle where the bodywork rubbed after the bearing had collapsed

New roller bearings are available but at around £1 each I though I might try a different approach for some of the new bearings and ended up with the following: -

Axle Bearings

As part of the restoration I fitted some a couple of ball races which bolt to the body work as seen in Running Gear. There is just enough room to fit them, and they don't look too bad, but are way smoother than the originals.

Wheel Bearings

It was not so easy to fit ball races on the wheels so I decided that the original solution was probably going to be the easiest solution here. As I have the use of a mini lathe I decided to knock some out from some 7/32" silver steel rod rather than pay the £1 per roller. It takes a lot of time as there are 24 per wheel for 3 wheels (one is fixed)

Crank Rod End Bearings

Although I could have made some more rollers her I recall that these were the most troublesome to keep in so I went for a slightly different approach here using PTFE bushes instead.

Some large washer type inserts were made from 6mm PTFE sheet originally to sit inside the wheel hub with 16mm holes to fit the axle stubs but never used due to the concern about uneven wear.

However these were cut into two segments and inserted into the crank ends. They seem to run really smoothly at the moment.

Next - Re Assembly