Tapered roller bearings are usually made by Timken, which is an
Ohio-based company. Whether they still have them made in Ohio or farm
them out to China or Japan, I don't know. But I do have an interesting
(well, to me anyway) story about tapered roller bearings. One of my
ancestors, last name of Tipton, used to repair windmills. Remember
them? One thing that he invented to build/repair windmills was a
large, tapered roller bearing made out of wood. Timken actually
visited him and got the idea for the metal tapered roller bearings
from my ancestor's wooden windmill bearings. Being as my family have
never been very good about patenting their ideas or anything, and
being as they're very generous with their ideas, well, the rest, as
they say, is history, and my ancestors never got to share in the
wealth. Timken is now something like a 12 billion dollar company, with
their roller bearings gracing pretty much every wheel of every car
that uses tapered roller bearings.

History is fun stuff.
Marc Perdue

On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 7:39 PM, Tom Hargrave <thargrav@hiwaay.net> wrote:
> I noticed from the Rock Auto thread that some believe most parts are made in
> China? For modern production car glass that might be true but I bet that
> Vanagon replacement glass is probably made here in the USA. Actually, a lot
> of things are made here - we still do more manufacturing than China today.
> All of the high volume low cost comes from China.
>
>
>
> Oh, and on the German Parts comment? You'd be surprised at how little of
> your Vanagon is German! And for proof, pull one of your front wheel
> bearings. If it's original it will be stamped "Made in Japan".
>
>
>
> Thanks, Tom Hargrave
>
> www.kegkits.com <http://www.kegkits.com/>
>
> www.stir-plate.com <http://www.stir-plate.com/>
>
> www.towercooler.com <http://www.towercooler.com/>
>
> www.grow-sun.com <http://www.grow-sun.com/>
>
> www.raspberryproject.com <http://www.raspberryproject.com/>
>
> http://goo.gl/niRzVw