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93' ultra classic lost oil pressure. the shop said it was the cam bearing that failed and the needles siezed the oil pump. they said that they could only find 23 of the 29 needles. my question is how possible is it to recover the rest of the bearings. I'm assuming they must be in the crank case.
Just a thought...the INA plastic cage bearing (assuming your bike came with the original less desirable INA cam bearing) has less rollers than the desirable B-138 torrington bearing.
If so, would it be possible the shop is mixing up the roller count? Meaning they think it should have more rollers than it actually did?
I have no idea of the roller count between the two different bearings, but I am sure some one here does...
Last edited by Yankee Dog; Mar 9, 2022 at 06:58 AM.
I'm seeing reports on teh intr4w3bz, yo, that INA bearings only had 23 rollers. Looking at the pic t150vej posted, the INA bearing has about half the rollers visible. Drawing a line across it and counting, comes up with about 10 or 11, so 23 looks more realistic than 29 or 30-something. Best thing to do would be to go to a Harley dealer and look at a new INA bearing (that's what they will try to sell you if you asked for an inner cam bearing) and count the rollers. Then you would know fer sure. So, if you look real close at the bearing, and if it is original, you might be OK.
This may help. I have a used Koyo B-138 bearing that I pulled from my 1989 Evo, and I counted the bearings. There are 29 total bearings. Now, Koyo, Torrington, INA, etc...are companies that make bearings. I believe Koyo bought over Timken and Torrington was part of Timken. Anyway, the bottomline is B-138 bearing (full compliment bearing) is the preferred over INA produced cam bearings (cage type) which Harley put in their bikes sometime in 1992.
You need to find out for sure what bearing was in the bike.
B-138 is 29.
INA- is 19 bearings? From what I can research, but can't verify.
Is the shop reputable? If so, then they are saying your B-138 bearing failed, because they found 23 bearings of 29. So, you have to find the other 6 bearings. By looking at the remaining bearing body, hopefully you can tell if it was a full compliment or caged bearing. Some of the bearings could be sitting at the bottom of the left side case, and could be embedded in your oil pump, breather cavity, etc.... What does the oil pump body look like? With more research, you will know if a thorough cleaning or splitting the case is required. Good luck.
edit: If old bearing is thrown away or unrecognizable, then did you have an aftermarket cam? If so, it's a high probability that you had a full compliment cam bearing to replace the stock one, when the cam job was done.
Last edited by daven9113; Mar 9, 2022 at 02:30 PM.
This is the photo taken by the shop. The bike is at my house now and I cant find any remains of the bearing in the parts sent home with it. They put the cam cover back on so I need to remove it to see what is in there. The cam doesnt have any markings so Im assuming stock.
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Failed cam bearing is it savable
