Bearings vs bushes

[Danger Dassie]

4 hours ago, love2fly said:

I have long considered trying Vesconite as a bushing material as my Trigon had some shitty urothane type bushes that hardened and broke (pictured below, it is inside the main pivot to protect the alu link from the through bolt).

The Vesconite worked amazingly well and way better than the OEM shite..

My concern with replacing bearings with this stuff is that the bearing might want to rotate in the cup as there will be greater friction until the pivot surfaces bed in.

For those naysayers, Vesconite is extensively used and even replaced brass bushes in railways machinery and seldom needs lube.

I wouldn't mind dabbling but the cost is also high to get set up but thereafter, cheaper than chips.

I used to have to replace bearings often but have learned that there is a trick to correct installation, wash carefully, only use Max bearings on pivots and clean and lube bigger bearings regularly for e.g. BB, and check/top up grease with new BB bearings as they can sit on a shelf for ages and dry out...

 

Been down this path already with vesconite bushes when at Denel ten years back. with mine and a few mate's bikes. After numerous attempts, it doesn't work. Ultimately if it was a viable broad-based solution for end users then the industry would have adopted it. 
Droo and Wyatt have summed up the solution going forward, anything else just leads to an expensive experiment.  

[love2fly]

3 hours ago, DieselnDust said:

Vesconite bushes would be great but need to be machined by someone who does this regularly. Dimensionally it’s a stable material and doesn’t absorb much water and also doesn’t change its friction properties much across a wide temperature range. Shock loads are also handled quite comfortably for our application. It’s a pity it’s not considered more seriously when bikes are designed

I went to Vesconite with the part, the guy with the vernier measured my old part and as if by magic, one week later I had 10....