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Comparison of the quality of available Bellcrank bearing kits:

I have an NOS kit with Willys packaged bearings (torrington B-188), locknut, washers, shaft etc. The locknut can only be turned by hand onto the shaft until the serrations engage the threads (in other words its a good locknut). There is no hole for a cotter on the threaded part of the shaft.

I picked up a repro kit from Kaiser Willys and was able to compare.
1) the repro kit is made in India
2) the bearings have much wider spaced rollers than the Willys packaged bearings.
3) The Locknut DOES NOT LOCK. It is simply a nut with serrations at the top. It looks like a lock nut but its poor quality.
4) The shaft has a hole for a cotter pin but you cannot use a pin if you use the locknut.

You have two things holding this critical shaft in place - the nut and the bellcrank bracket bolt. It doesn't make safety sense to not have both at 100% considering the consequences.

TM9-8012 references the SELF LOCKING nut (p274) as does the parts book.

I called Kaiser Willys to let them know that their lock nuts dont have any locking ability.
1) they told me not to worry about it. They sell lots of kits and have never had a problem.
2) they told me to put a cotter pin through the nut. There is no possible way to do this. They insisted there was. I hate being treated like an idiot even if I am.

Conclusion: if you are replacing your bellcrank bearings with a kit check to be sure you have a quality kit with a proper lock nut on the top of the shaft. If the nut were to ever back out and you lost the bellcrank bolt you would loose steering. That would be bad.
There are probably ways to doctor up the India kit to make it satisfactory but that's not what I wanted to get into.

Kaiser willys gave me a return authorization to send back the kit. I'll be installing NOS parts.

Tom

Tom,

I have had similiary problems sometimes with parts dealers.

They often want to sell you what they can easily get, no matter on quality or if it is the correct part.

I am thinking about putting up another forum here that people can post to for reviews of NOS and reproduction parts.

What do you think?

Ryan,
Setting up a parts and supplier review area is a great idea. One of the things a newbie like myself runs into is assessing the best vendors and parts out there and their relative merits. I like to minimize my ordering and running to parts stores because of the cost and time delays, which is why I end up being somewhat redundant in my questions on exactly what parts are needed for each project. Having a source to review vendors and kits would help in that time and cost savings.
-Josh

I have been hesitant to set up a vender/ jeep parts review forum due to the fact that if someone had a misunderstanding with a vender and lashed out here on the website.

I will probably set up a forum in the near future. I would like to primarily focus on the parts: fit, form, function, originality, etc.

Ryan,
I agree that a forum to browbeat business deals may not be productive. But, as a review of parts it could be useful especially if the subject line were regarding the part only. For example "exhaust manifold" so that the resource could be used quickly.

We have all probably seen the differences between original and repro parts that would help in choosing which might fit budget or function. For example I got a repro exhaust manifold years ago that was so bad I couldnt believe it was for sale by a vendor. A buyer would have had to spend many dollars and hours machining surfaces to get it to fit (it got sent back). That made the extra $50 for a nice French manifold well worthwhile. But even the French manifolds have differences that some people might want to know about.

So...it could be a good resource.

Tom