Carrier Bearings

[71meangreenc10]

Can anyone tell why GM used the "I" beam style on coil springs and the horseshoe style on leaf springs? Got to be a reason for it. Can you interchange them without damage, Ie if you had all the brackets. Does it have to do with suspension drop/travel?....Horseshoe style carrier bearings seem to last longer than the I beam style.

I have the chance to put a horseshoe style with trailing arms w/coils and dont want to damage my truck.

Thoughts.

Smitty

[68Gold/white]

Originally Posted by 71meangreenc10

Can anyone tell why GM used the "I" beam style on coil springs and the horseshoe style on leaf springs? Got to be a reason for it. Can you interchange them without damage, Ie if you had all the brackets. Does it have to do with suspension drop/travel?....Horseshoe style carrier bearings seem to last longer than the I beam style.

I have the chance to put a horseshoe style with trailing arms w/coils and dont want to damage my truck.

Thoughts.

Smitty

I don't have a "why", but the later "horseshoe" style carrier bearings are a way better design, my opinion, also.

I plan to switch on my pickup also. Will have to make a new bracket to mount the 73-up bearing, though...I sold auto parts for 13 years, those older style carrier bearings are a poor design.

Jusr make sure the bearing I.D. fits the driveshaft you have. THere are different sized I.D.carrier bearings and the housings are different also...

[71meangreenc10]

My 71 GMC has all the parts to change over into the coil frame, so the I.D. wont be an issue. Just wonder why GM had to do two styles....

Smitty

[Captainfab]

I believe it had more to do with one being a light duty versus heavy duty. It is possible that the 3 speed trans were considered light duty, and the trucks with the SM420 or SM465 were considered heavy duty. That said, the majority of the '63-'72 trucks I have seen in my area, had the heavy duty carrier bearing mounted on the bottom of the trailing arm crossmember. As far as I can remember, most if not all of those had 4 speeds. Personally, I would never consider running the light duty carrier bearing. It is a very poor design, and I have seen way too many failures.

[truckdude239]

i've have a 71 with the lovey I beam Carrier Bearing and i hate it i change the thing once a year next one is going to the drive shaft shop for a rebalanced and replace

[fleetsidelarry]

If I had all the parts to swap over, I'd certainly do it. The thing that has stopped me is that the driveshafts are different, at least on my truck ('66 fleet). on my truck with the wimpy bearing hanger, the fore and aft movement of the shaft is all at the transmission yoke, which puts a constant push and pull on the rubber "donut" that the bearing is mounted in. Since the rear driveshaft with the HD-type mount has a sliding-spline which takes up the movement, I would think it's a much better arrangement.