I forgot about the “alternator”.
Maybe a carry over from my Danish, where the distinguishing is DC=Dynamo, AC=Generator.
Again, I learned something and widened my horizon.
Wow!! You must have been really confused!!
LLoyd
Erica, my department designed custom gearboxes of various ratios which used 10hp input motors and usually 600;1 oa ratios. I had a special application for a gearbox and I decided to use needle bearings instead of our customary bushings. I delivered the antennas driven by these boxes. and had failures caused by overheating. We rebuilt the gearboxes, changed the burned bearings packed the gearboxes boxes with plenty of grease and shipped them . They also failed . I repeated this again and my colleagues reminded me that bushings didn’t fail. I installed bushings and the problem ended. Then I found out why: If you have a 1 inch shaft (D1) turning 2000 rpm, and the needles which are in contact are .02 (D2) in diameter then the rotational speed of the needles will be D1/D2 =1.00/.02=50:1 or 50 x 2000 rpm=100,000 rpm needle speed. Worse yet, if they are not caged, they will “dance” as they bang into each other. The rotating surfaces which contact are turning in the opposite direction. The result is lots of heat not to mention the heat you already have with the exhaust manifold. I suggest you figure out what the rotations; tapped of the armatures is and call a Torrington application engineer,
Mike makes good points: Torrington is now part of Koyo.
http://www.koyo.eu/en/news/289-koyo-koyo-torrington-needle-roller-bearings-brand-integration.html
Those are good points Mike. I think the Torrington bearings are “full compliment”. Is that what you tried? They seem to have substantially lower max RPM according to the specs. The caged ones are rated the highest, they claim up to 18k RPM which made me think it could work. The heat from the manifolds however is a concern.
Torrington is an Interesting company. I dealt with them a lot years ago. The Factory Rep was a fine engineer. He explained to me one time how the company evolved from the textile industry. They revolutionized sewing by creating a machine which made needles. Expanding their market, they got into needle bearings. They also made spokes for wheels. The Wiki article is interesting. In 1970, rue repo told me the original needle plant was still making needles.It was huge and complex, a series of patches. They would be forever redesigning and speeding up whatever was the currently slowest machine. He was convinced that one day, it would all collapse and they would be out of the needle business as it would’t pay tomato the investment to replace the textile needle plant.
The dynamos fitted to cars which had a power steering pump fitted to the back of them did have a roller bearing fitted.
They are indeed: when my Dad built a prototype of his engine, the crankshaft utilized Torrington’s double spherical roller bearings, that were unaffected by small misalignments.
Brilliant design!
A needle bearing will only work, and last, if the shaft is hardened, which I’d guess it is not. What’s needed is a sealed, or more likely (due to RPM) shielded, ball bearing, which requires a modified rear cover for the generator. I actually offered to make one for Jerry, since he seemed to have generator failures about once a year, but we never got around to it.
Regards,
Ray L.
That doesn’t seem promising. I think you might be right about the shaft not being hardened 
You were going to try machining a whole new bracket or modifying an existing one? That seems like a lot of work. Maybe it could be based on the bracket for the model with power steering or tach drive? They look like this one…
Michael
Thanks for info on Torrington. Spent most of my life in the textile industry and had no idea that Torrington Needles and bearings were one in the same. Interesting story.
For Jag content, when I rebuilt my 11ac alternator was unable to find a closed end bearing for rear. Subed in an open ended one rated at 12K rpm and taped over rear. Also used a lithium grease that met mfg. spec.
Glenn
Absolutely right-shaft has a hardness requirement also.
Mike