Just say no to Chinese bearings?

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husqORbust

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And yes to everything else?

Somehow I managed to get my hands on an old Jred 625ii then before I knew it the jug was off and I was comitted to freshening up the bottom end with seals and a case gasket.

The OE bearings feel pretty decent as far as I can tell and are marked "SKF 6202-c3vg104 France"

SKF 6202/c3 bearings made in Argentina are $5 a piece... that's dirt cheap and theoretically should be a no brainer replace em while I'm in there....that being said

Is there any reason to believe a set of modern "SKF Argentina" bearings will be inferior to ones made in france 30+ years ago?

These france SKF's feel pretty good for SKF bearings...a brand I dismissed in the past as I personally like to use a Koyo bearing if I can because of Japans tight/generally pretty good quality standards compared to most crap these days, but for a saw application are the modern bearings these days good to go as long as theyre not Chinese?
 
Two things, I have yet to see a failure with the bearings in my clone saws, left alone or tweaked starting way back in 2014. Includes Clone 372's, 660's and a few others. I recently built a pair of saw on Huztl 372 cases with close to 190lbs compression and one spent a season in daily use for a logger, in fact went out last night to another for a loaner saw as I evaluate an issue on his 572. The other I'm using now as my saw for the season. SO while not conclusive it adds to my evidence set that over time will give me an opinion based on experience.....I'm not there yet as I just don't have enough data. So I certainly would not go out of my way to change out the bearings that come with those Farmertec saws or kits.

Second, when I build / rebuild a saw for a customer from scratch, I prefer to run either the steel caged SKF's that you can get from the Husqvarna dealers ( 346's?, OE 372's) or a better rated bearing from any number of manufacturers. Had really good luck with Nachi brand 6202 c3's to this point as well. The only bearings I have purchased that "disappointed" me were some NTN's a few years back that had 7 balls instead of the 8 typical..and one of those saws came apart 2 years later living the logger life.

Last there are a bunch of saws where better bearings are near impossible to find such as the 390's pto side, 562/550 etc. Husqvarna makes them a unique enough spec where typical bearing sources simply don't carry alternatives.
 
+1 for the Nachis for my builds. I'm not going to risk it for the ~$8 saved with China bearings per bottom end re-build. I wouldn't forgo an SKF though, that's OEM. I have to believe their tooling and QC has to be up to snuff to put their name on it, regardless of country of origin. In the environment that I spend my days we use all brands mentioned here (except the FT/Huztl obviously) and I've seen no pattern of failure from any of them.
 
Two things, I have yet to see a failure with the bearings in my clone saws, left alone or tweaked starting way back in 2014. Includes Clone 372's, 660's and a few others. I recently built a pair of saw on Huztl 372 cases with close to 190lbs compression and one spent a season in daily use for a logger, in fact went out last night to another for a loaner saw as I evaluate an issue on his 572. The other I'm using now as my saw for the season. SO while not conclusive it adds to my evidence set that over time will give me an opinion based on experience.....I'm not there yet as I just don't have enough data. So I certainly would not go out of my way to change out the bearings that come with those Farmertec saws or kits.

Second, when I build / rebuild a saw for a customer from scratch, I prefer to run either the SKF's that you can get from the Husqvarna dealers ( 346's?, OE 372's) or a better rated bearing from any number of manufacturers. Had really good luck with Nachi brand 6202 c3's to this point as well. The only bearings I have purchased that "disappointed" me were some NTN's a few years back that had 7 balls instead of the 8 typical..and one of those saws came apart 2 years later living the logger life.

Last there are a bunch of saws where better bearings are near impossible to find such as the 390's pto side, 562/550 etc. Husqvarna makes them a unique enough spec where typical bearing sources simply don't carry alternatives.
7 chuskys and 8-12 earthquake and other zenoah clones
Never lost a bearing.
I found 6202 shielded nachi for 2.50 on eBay
Bought a bunch Popped the shields out
No problems.
 
7 chuskys and 8-12 earthquake and other zenoah clones
Never lost a bearing.
I found 6202 shielded nachi for 2.50 on eBay
Bought a bunch Popped the shields out
No problems.
That's what I buy too. I think one round I bought may have been RSs, but they all pop right out. Do you spray the grease out or just throw them in?
 
That's what I buy too. I think one round I bought may have been RSs, but they all pop right out. Do you spray the grease out or just throw them in?
Guy was pissed wanted oem stihl carbs for his
Weed trimmer and saw i got them
Both oem stihl/china from the dealer lol
Stihl running somehow that was two year's ago.
Used lots of china bearings in cars/trucks
No failures.
 
Don't know about Chinese, but the worst bearing I've ever seen was made in England, pure garbage. In fact I will be replacing it with a Chinese made one, it can't possibly be as bad as the original.
 
Don't know about Chinese, but the worst bearing I've ever seen was made in England, pure garbage. In fact I will be replacing it with a Chinese made one, it can't possibly be as bad as the original.
That's actually funny....and very few remember what the "prince of darkness" was about..... Lou - Cus (ing) one of the things that helped the Motorcycle companies from Japan run away with that market in the 70's...:) SO why is anyone surprised that an economy that is pushing the limits with technology along with an "A" game military would have a hard time with bearings and castings??
 
Both bearing supply stores I have been to lately shelf stock and sell a lot of “Chinese” bearings, they claim to have no issues with them in regard to customer feedback, folks that rebuild equipment are folks that “share” feedback in regards to parts, bearing supply store would hear about bad bearings. I have used many in electric motors, compressors, spindle applications, etc, no issues so far. The stores stock lots of different brands and will source any brand requested, with time and money being the difference. I order Koyo from them in a couple different sizes for saw rebuilds.

SKF is usually described as an “if no other option” available bearing. It is in regards to chainsaws, hands down the most common brand of bearing that I replace because of failure, by a huge margin. When I was a good bit younger it was a much more respected brand, not so much these days. Similar fall from grace to that of Bosch spark plugs.
 
I have and almost new Vermeer silage pro round baler and every bearing in it is made in China and I noticed the new John Deere round balers are the same. I would rather have US, but it is probably like everything else as there are probably good quality CHina bearings and some of less quality. I just change out the bearings in a MS180 that were getting loud and it had made in China bearings in it from the factory.
 
Lucas 'letric is why Brits drink warm beer......and pretend it's better that way...like it was the plan all along.....
Lucas electrics
Lucas 'letric is why Brits drink warm beer......and pretend it's better that way...like it was the plan all along.....
lucas electrics and Smith’s gauges is what doomed Major Tom.:rolleyes:
 
I suspect, like everything else, you buy buy the cheapest China bearings you can find and the quality will be low....you buy more normally priced China bearings and the quality will be equal to similar priced bearings from Timkin, FAG, SKF etc. When we say "Chinese" bearing we tend to paint with a very wide brush. I'm old enough to remember that ANYTHING from Japan was JUNK.......25-30 years later and EVERYTHING made in Japan was state of the art. Same with Taiwan and I'm sure it will be the same with China in the coming years.......they all run on the same program. Build and sell enough cheap crap to afford better equipment to build better/more expensive items...and then do it again...and again...and... again. Increasing productivity and quality at each stage to allow them to sell increasingly better products for more money.
 
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