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Atco garden 30 bearing help

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Elrikos Wed, 03/06/2020

Morning all

I'm after a little assistance on an atco garden 30 I'm trying to revive.

Firstly, I'm struggling to properly date it. It came with an aftermarket engine, so no help there, and no identification plates anywhere. It seems fairly old (sorry for being so vague!). Metric spanners don't fit, but neither do imperial. Perhaps it's whitworth? 

Anyway, my query at the moment relates to cylinder bearings. The ones currently fitted are pretty worn, so need replacing. I can't find any Id numbers on the bearings and the measurements I've taken don't seem to match up to any standard sizes. I wondered if anyone knew the answer! Here's what I've measured.

Bearing id 19.77mm

Bearing od 47.06mm

Bearing width 14mm

Cylinder shaft 1 od 20mm (seems unworn)

Cylinder shaft 2 od 19.5mm (has a step worn in surface). 

My next question perhaps is how to repair the worn shaft. My thinking was to try to find an engineering shop who would machine down the worn surface to a standard size (thinking perhaps 19.05mm) and fit new bearing from there. 

Any pointers would be gratefully received. 

Thanks

Rich 

Forums

wristpin Wed, 03/06/2020

I think that it’s safe to say that the bearings  are not metric.  If yours is an early machine the hardware will be BSF and BSW. Later machines will be UNF and UNC.  The parts book will only give an Atco part number, but I think that the cylinder bearings will either have an id of  3/4” and an od of 1.7/8”  or an id of 7/8” and an od of 2”.

 

Elrikos Fri, 05/06/2020

Hi wristpin.

Thanks for the help. I've tried to move forward a bit, but I'm struggling! 

I ordered up an lj3/4 bearing, as it seemed closest to what I had (3/4" Id, 1,7/8" od). Unfortunately it's definitely too small on the Id.  I'm a little stuck now. I guess my options seem to be

1) order up a 6204 metric bearing (20mmx47mm) which will be a loose fit and use a liquid bearing retainer 

2) find an engineering shop who can turn the bearing surface down to 19.05mm (3/4")

3) work out whether there is another bearing somewhere which fits.

Unless I'm missing something (and I may well be!)

Here's a link to the type of cylinder I have. Looking at the description, it seems like it's the early style. 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203007423862

wristpin Fri, 05/06/2020

No, I don’t think that you are missing something but it looks as though you are the victim of some previous misdemeanour or unrectified wear.

I’ve just had a look at a parts book and it lists the same part number for the bearings regardless of whether the machine is an early BSF  or later UNF / Royale . Same part number equals same sized bearings but Atco just list them as “ bearing” with no reference to their size. They wanted people to pay their inflated price rather than to pop round to their local bearing factor and pay far less.

The only changes were that early machines had fairly rudimentary dirt excluding washers while later ones  used double rubber sealed bearings . According to one of my old workshop crib sheets they were RLS62RS or LJ3/4RS - 3/4” I’d. 1.7/8” od x 9/16” wide.

Elrikos Fri, 05/06/2020

Thanks for checking for me wristpin. At least I know I'm not going mad! I still can't quite work out how I've got an "early" pattern cylinder with a shaft size of 20mm. I guess the only explanation is someone has repaired the  cylinder before by welding and maching to 20mm on a lathe, only for it to wear down again, to where I am.

 

Anyway, I'll try to find a helpful machine shop who may be able to reduce my shaft size to fit a 3/4 inch bearing, then I'm back to a known quantity and know if is "right" for the future

Thanks again for the sanity check! At least I know I'm on the right path trying to fix this!