[Lobito's65Cat]

I need to find rear bearings for my 65 Cat, havent started looking to be honest but since im at work and wont get out till seven i tought i might ask you guys. Thanks in advance.

[Lobito's65Cat]

I need to find rear bearings for my 65 Cat, havent started looking to be honest but since im at work and wont get out till seven i tought i might ask you guys. Thanks in advance.

[Deadhead]

Got mine quickest at NAPA.

[Stuart]

NAPA or any good local auto parts store should be able to get them for you. If it were me I'd just take the axles in and have the shop install them, since you need a hydraulic press to remove the old ones and install the new ones.

[Deadhead]

Recently the ones for our F/S were backordered at the smaller parts stores & I think Ames. Took some looking. Probably should have ordered 2 sets. Scary that that part would be hard to find. Napa is Japanese. Could be worse.

Good advice on the shop makes the Napa option even better.

[pontiacjeff]

Did you find your axle bearings? The number is RW508BR. NAPA is the best place.

I am working on a fix for our 10K-mile axle bearings. I'll let you know how mine work out after more mileage.

[meanolgoat]

Be careful with the rear axle bearings. When I replaced mine on my 65 Cat Convertible, I found out I had a 65 Grand Prix rear-end and the Bearings were larger (and more expensive) then what was in the standard Pontiac rear-end. I ended up cross-reference the part number directly off the old bearing to get a new one.

[AROWHED]

Meanolgoat, are you absolutely certain about that? I don't beleive a 65 GP has a different rearend housing (as far as axle bearings go) than any other 65 fullsize. I own a 65Gp and have put replacement axle shafts into it's rearend that I pulled from a 68 Catalina.
Hollanders even says axles shafts are fully interchangeable between all 65-70 fullsize Pontiacs.

[pontiacjeff]

65-70 All Pontiac FS (incl. 65-68GP) rear bearing is p.n. RW508BR, industry-wide. Some mfg drop the "RW".

It really doesn't matter whose brg you use, they all last about 10K miles. It was a bad design having a sealed brg in that application. All the grease "sealed" in weeps out and they run dry. You can extend the life by acquiring a hypodermic grease fitting and squeezing some grease b/t the outer lip of the seal and the outer race every 3-5K miles. That could go on indefinately, but every time you insert the needle, the outer lip gets a little looser, and is more likely to leak...

Stuck in Dallas Tx last May with a broken posi and a bad whl brg, I was forced to improvise. The 4.11 posi was swapped for a 2.73 open in the pits, but the axle brg presented more of a problem. So, to extend it life and get home, I removed the inner lip seal (inside face of brg) and loosely packed the recess b/t the axle oil seal and the inside face of the brg with whl brg grease. This insures a constant, greater volume of grease to lube the brg. The only prob so far is slight weeping of grease around the OD of the brg. It's not even enough to make it onto the backing plate. I'm sure this is due to windage, not actual leakage. A small hole in the top side of the axle tube with a 1/8" NPT nipple fitting, some vacuum hose and a check valve should eliminate any weepage around the brg. (I have yet to do the last mod, but plan it soon.) It's my hope that the next set of brgs I buy will be the last.

Arowhed, next week... no later.

[Deadhead]

Until I changed out the case, my '66 Bonneville w/ 100k on it had the original rear bearings & seals. Never made a sound, never leaked, never babied. Go figure.

[mr67gp]

My experience has been the same as Deadhead. Well over 100k on rear axle bearings has been the norm for my over a half dozen '65-'70 cars. My '67 Bonnie agon has 146k and the axle bearings are now gone.

[Deadhead]

I think we just completed a study on the evolution of product quality.

[meanolgoat]

I will check my records tonight- I saved the end flap of the replacement bearings so I would have the part number. I went to NAPA to get my bearings and the first set was the wrong ones (to Small on the OD), I pulled my old ones and they matched with the 65 GP numbers in their parts catalog. Thier parts catalog did show different numbers from the Catalina and the Grand Prix, so it may have been a mix-up there.

[meanolgoat]

Ok, well here I go passing along info, because the parts store gave me the wrong parts. The first bearings they sold me were P/N 88131R. The second were the RW508BR, which fit.

[pontiacjeff]

The other brgs are for the brg retainer 10 bolt in 69-71 GP's and other Pontiac 8.2 rears.

I agree with the quality issue of new parts. But, how does one know the axle bearings are original on a car that is almost 40 years old??? Esp if one has only had the car 2, 3, 5, even 10 years?

[pontiacjeff]

One more thing, CNC machined brgs now days are much better tolerances than the old stuff. I think the problem is the grease. It's too thin. The old brg grease was much thicker.

[Deadhead]

In my case I have owned the car since '83, & before that it was my grandfather's, so it is known. Unless it was changed early in its life, which is unlikely, I would know about it. I personally put over 50k on it without changing Brngs, so that is a 5X improvement over currently available parts minimum.

Probably some forbidden substance in the old grease.

[Hitman]

How much did you guys pay for your bearings?

[meanolgoat]

I paid about $60.00 each, for the Timkin RW508BR

[Deadhead]

$43 Ea. for NAPA Japa.