Bearings International, part of the Hudaco group of companies, is a leading southern African distributor of a wide range of quality bearings and power transmission products. The company is also a proud stockist of the Dodge bearing product range including unitised ball bearings, tapered roller bearings and spherical roller bearings. For more than 125 years, the Dodge brand has been synonymous with the best the industry has to offer and, according to Bearings International’s Bearings Manager, Ross Trevelyan, the Dodge bearing products offer two key advantages - a unique mounting system and sealing system. “The benefits of this focus, which is aimed to produce better mounting and dismounting of the product as well as better sealing, are to remove the possibility of failure due to contamination at installation and in operation phases, and making installation as simple and quick as possible,” explains Trevelyan.

The Dodge ISN unitized spherical roller bearing and housing is the most successful Dodge product in South Africa to date. It is supplied pre-assembled, pre-lubricated and pre-sealed in a SN compatible housing. According to Trevelyan, the ISN high-capacity double-row spherical roller bearing with effective easy-on, easy-off adapter mounting and removal system, combined with the patented sealing options make the unit unique. “Dodge developed a system called the shaft ready system which has a patented tapered push/pull adapter that allows the bearings to be easily mounted onto a shaft and then dismounted again without having to dismantle the housing. No feeler gauges are required and no component-level assembly is necessary. The patented easy-on, easy off mounting system not only provides a concentric grip for superior holding on the shaft, it ensures that the bearing can be mounted and dismounted in less than fifteen minutes!”

The Dodge shaft mounted torque arm, Torque Arm II is another product that Trevelyan says is successfully making its way onto the local market. Originally invented in 1946 and developed over time, Dodge now offers metric versions to the global gearbox market. The Torque Arm units are shaft mounted gear products and belt-driven with MTA motorised versions available. They are designed for installation on the head pulley shaft of a conveyor, so they can be used without a mounting to the support structure.        “The shaft mounting system is again a unique feature; a twin tapered bushing system is used to mount these gearboxes onto the pulley shaft and, as with the ISN bearing solution, the tapers make it much easier to mount the gearbox, but more importantly, it is much easier to dismount it,” continues Trevelyan. Also a feature of the Torque Arm II is a double sealing system to keep contamination out and ensure that the gearbox tapered roller bearings reach their design life even when operating in extremely harsh environments. This patented premium sealing system uses only HNBR oil seals, manufactured from hydrogenated nitrile butadiene rubber, which has six times the wear life of a normal rubber seal. A metal excluder seal offers added protection and the system also includes a wave lip seal design which constantly pushes the oil away for increased seal efficiency and reduced contamination.

The ‘Grip Tight’ Adapter Ball bearing Unit, another push/pull adapter system from the Dodge stable, is ready to use out of the box with variations of styles for normal to medium duty operations, including; pillow block, tapped base, two-four bolt flange, piloted flange, take-up and ‘E-Z KLEEN’ designs. One of the key features is the Grip-Tight patent pending pull/push adapter system, it achieves a fully concentric 360 degree inner ring grip to the shaft through the entire length of the bore and is a completely interchangeable housing design. The easy-on/easy-off solution of the new Dodge Grip Tight Adapter ball bearing is suitable for damage free shafting, reduced vibrations and greater costs efficiency. “This versatility enables customers to select the suitable Grip Tight Adapter bearing that best meets their specific application,” adds Trevelyan.

The Adapter ball bearing has been specifically engineered to run at higher speeds and to operate cooler. This extends grease life and ensures little to no down time. Time and maintenance costs are reduced as the product is able to suppress fretting corrosion and scarring to shafts and journals. Trevelyan also points out that this Dodge ball bearing enables customers to reduce their inventory by as much as 25-45%. “Rather than an inventory of individual bore sizes for each housing style, a housing assembly and adapters can be purchased separately, with the adapter determining the bore size within a housing series which leads to significant cost savings.”

Dodge Products are ideally suited to bulk materials handling applications as well as coal and iron ore mining; quarrying, gravel and sand applications; wood; sugar; and pulp & paper. According to Trevelyan, the product is currently enjoying growth in the mining, quarrying and petrochemical industries. “The Dodge range has the potential to offer solutions for all industries and we have invested in substantial stock to service the diverse local market applications. With more than 52 country-wide branches that are fully trained on the products and with the current limit of bearing bore sizes of 140 mm shaft size soon to be increased to include larger sizes, our customers are rest assured that we can supply the complete quality Dodge bearing range supported by product specialists to meet their individual and unique requirements for lowest total cost of ownership,” concludes Trevelyan.