What a brilliant idea, I want to post thie following, even though I know it has vewry little to do with Motorbikes , however it has everything to do with how WE have gone from quality state of mind to a profit state of mind.
Seeing these bearings makes me think of a bit on American ingenuity, I worked drilling water wells & installing water well pumps / water filtration for the better part of 25 years.
In that time, I have seen American companies go from an indestructible shallow well pump made from cast iron with bronze impellers that would last 50 -75 even "100 year old piston pumps" are still going with the steel ball bearings and bronze impellers . Well that all changed around 1980's All these indestructible well pumps went from being made with these awesome bronze impellers to "Don't run it dry for 2 minutes or else" plastic , noisy, flimsy, Polly vinyl chloride AKA P.V.C. impellers
Then as if that wasn't enough down grading, they went from the also almost indestructible double shielded ball bearings, to these new style noisy bearings with rubber in them .. Why anyone would put rubber in a moving heat creating" I love this saying "Self lubricating" bearing is beyond me
" Self lubricating from the tears your crying over the brand new pump that just fried"
So when I go on a service call and depending on the customer if it's a nice older lady or gentle man with a 50 year old Grundfos pump with the ever fading bronze impeller I will tell them that pump you have there is 25 times better than anything they sell today I can take back to the shop toss in some new "OLD STYLE bearing" that are hard to come by "Grizzly makes a good old style bearing " and make that 50 year old pump is good for another 50 years if you want?
I literally hate putting in a brand new Gould / Sta-rite pump and have the customer say "Why is that louder than my 40 year old pump . It's all I can do to not say "Well Miss, that's because they don't make **** the way they use to because, the new owners of these companies have no scruples or morals like their fathers did and think of nothing but profit and more sales in five years which is about the amount of time this brand new pump might last you if your lucky!
Are you sure you no longer want this older "BETTER" pump any more?. Just seeing the bearings above just reminded me of the older better bearings they no longer make. Now a days they use plastic impellers , plastic guide vanes and even plastic casings on some of these new pumps. I cant believe it. . Then again if they hadn't done it, I may not have had the quality of life & Job I had for all these years or 3 herniated discs & sciatica ,arthritic hands, and bad knees which way do you look at it? HMM
