Interest in Aurora HAB-3T spherical bearings

[Eric Hutchinson]

Hello,

I've been working with Aurora Bearing (http://www.aurorabearing.com/) about the possibility of a making a smaller bore, high-misalignment spherical bearings. Currently the HAB sphericals only go down to a .250" bore. We would be looking at having a .1875" bore made, essentially what would be the HAB-3T/HAB-3TG in their catalog here (http://www.aurorabearing.com/Files/articles/AuroraBearing610Catalog.pdf).

Aurora is reviewing their pricing currently. I know I've talked with a few people around the paddock, but I'm curious if any other teams might be interested too. Having a few more buyers might make the production run more worth Aurora's time.

Eric Hutchinson
UW-Madison Formula SAE

[Eric Hutchinson]

Hello,

I've been working with Aurora Bearing (http://www.aurorabearing.com/) about the possibility of a making a smaller bore, high-misalignment spherical bearings. Currently the HAB sphericals only go down to a .250" bore. We would be looking at having a .1875" bore made, essentially what would be the HAB-3T/HAB-3TG in their catalog here (http://www.aurorabearing.com/Files/articles/AuroraBearing610Catalog.pdf).

Aurora is reviewing their pricing currently. I know I've talked with a few people around the paddock, but I'm curious if any other teams might be interested too. Having a few more buyers might make the production run more worth Aurora's time.

Eric Hutchinson
UW-Madison Formula SAE

[Ben K]

Sounds like a fun endeavor, but why...? Is it the strength increase?

You can pretty much create a high misalignment bearing out of a non-high misalignment by creating stand-offs similar to figure 3 on page 4 of their catalog. Our team did this--though I recommend using a higher strength steel for the stand-offs so they don't crush via clamping forces.

So do you guys currently take a COM-3T or otherwise and convert it over, or do you make do with the HAB-4T's?


Ben

[woodsy96]

Have a chat to the Auckland team, they may have just got some done.

We changed to the HAB-4Ts in 2009. They were a bit big and overkill, but saved us making 100 million spacers, and suspension assembly and servicing became dreamily easy rather than an abosolute c*** fiddling with spacers (or stacked washers when one went missing).

[Eric Hutchinson]

Ben - We're currently using the COM-3T. Looking for a different solution because dealing with spacers everywhere on the car gets to be a real pain.

[Mazur]

So would that mean a 3/16" shank as well?

How much weight do you think you will ultimately save? I'm assuming a substantial amount if you're going through the trouble of having these made?

[Ben K]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by woodsy96:
Have a chat to the Auckland team, they may have just got some done.

We changed to the HAB-4Ts in 2009. They were a bit big and overkill, but saved us making 100 million spacers, and suspension assembly and servicing became dreamily easy rather than an abosolute c*** fiddling with spacers (or stacked washers when one went missing). </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You made me laugh out loud at work. Thanks for that. I now remember how much I absolutely hated spacers in our suspension spherical bearings.

Ben

[Dunk Mckay]

Spacers are so annoying!!! I had to get someone else to do it for me the other day, I'd been up most of the night and my hands were shaking just a little to much to do it myself. I've never designed the suspension systems myself, or researched bearings, but I always wondered if there was a better way. I'll be taking a much closer look at suspension design next year so this interests me a lot.

[Nick Renold]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I'll be taking a much closer look at suspension design next year so this interests me a lot. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Dunk,
Be careful. The rabbit hole goes a long way down...

[Mazur]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Dunk Mckay:
but I always wondered if there was a better way. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

We welded in steel spacers where possible. Made suspension assembly a breeze, though we still had quite a bit of loose spacers. I'm going to try and eliminate as many loose spacers as possible this year. Shit sucks.

[Dunk Mckay]

Yeah, I wanted to try bonding them in, but supposedly "it wouldn't work." I dunno, I thought at least a test piece would be worth it, it's not like the bonding medium* needs to transmit any load once it's all assembled. Welding steel spacers into aluminium doesn't work so great.

*I prefer to use fancier terms than glue, but really I just mean glue.

[Nick Renold]

Stick them in with some light masking tape and push the bolt through the tape during assembly? Bonus points if the judges think the tape is holding your suspension together.

[Dunk Mckay]

Masking tape would never hold the spacers in place when trying to insert the bearing.

[Nick Renold]

I guess it depends on how your spacers are set up. Our spacer had shoulders that mated to the frame tabs. I do remember that a few tabs were too narrow and we would have to flex the tabs apart to get the bearing in between the spacers.

[woodsy96]

One of the bad things to going to the HMA4-T was that the rod ends actually have a 3/8" UNF shank, which was (is) huge comparitively and required all of the other suspension arms to be correspondingly huge (5/8" 4130 tube) to accomodate them.

[Nath_01]

I totally agree with all of the comments about fiddling with spacers they have always been a pain in the ass!

Probably the best solution I have seen is one where aluminum spacers of the correct geometry were pressed in to the clevis. Meaning you only had to insert the spherical into the clevis/spacers.

However this does increase the size of your clevis, both in height and possibly in wall thickness, it may or may not work for the geometry you have in your design.

[KustomizingKid]

Our team found that through all in plane suspension mounting points (at static ride height) we could eliminate the need for both spacers and high misalignment rod ends, tidies up the mounting points and makes assembly a breeze.

[John McCrory]

Please cut me some slack if i post this incorrectly. When i joined the forum, and resolved to not use this privilege to advance Aurora sales issues. Those who no me, know i'm an old dog, and this
is not something i do casually.

However, to this topic:
Aurora now has in production HAB-3T and HAB-3TG hi-misalignment sphericals and HXAM/HXAB-3T rod ends. They are priced comparably to the 1/4" bearings in the same series. There is stock, but
there may be delays if demand outstrips initial forecasts.
Parts are not shown in our current catalog, but can be seen by linking thru:
http://cad.aurorabearing.com/viewitems/h-performance-rod-ends-spherical-bearings-rod-ends/am-t-hxab-t-high-misalignment-series-male-rod-ends
or
http://cad.aurorabearing.com/viewitems/high-performance-units-spherical-bearings/-hab-t-high-misalignment-series-spherical-bearings