[TowerTalk] Thrust Bearing Maintenance

[K7LXC@aol.com]

In a message dated 9/3/2005 4:48:44 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
towertalk-request at contesting.com writes:

>   I recently took down my tower to relocate to another QTH.   The thrust 
bearing was a bit sluggish.  Upon disassembling, I found the roller bearings on 
the base mounting side to be a bit rusty and entire inside of the assembly 
dirty.  I cleaned the bearings and bearing races and reassembled.  This greatly 
improved the smoothness when turning.  I would like to replace the rusty 
bearings.  Does anyone have a source?  Also, my instincts dictate that this assembly 
should be lubricated.  What is the proper lubricant for this type of bearing? 
 

    None. The ball bearings are steel and the races are aluminum and require 
no maintenance. Since the bearings are wide open to the weather, anything in 
the air will get in. By putting some sort of grease in there you're just 
inviting all sorts of crap to be collected by the grease which'll speed up the wear 
of the bearings. 

    You can check the TT archives at www.contesting.com for specifics but I 
think that you can take the ball bearings to a bearing store and you can get 
some equivalents. I don't know anything about quantities or anything but it's 
probably worth a try.

    BTW the Rohn TB's suffer most from wind damage when the antenna and mast 
rocks and pounds the hard bearings and soft races together so they get pretty 
pitted and rough turning. 

Cheers,
Steve     K7LXC
TOWER TECH