It happened on my Murray lawn mower within the last year. I bought a "quill" for my mower deck to replace a worn out quill last fall. Wanting to have another one on hand, I bought an extra. I went to pull the blades to sharpen them a few weeks ago and found that the bearings on one of the quills were shot (in fairness, not sure if it's the one I replaced last year). I grabbed the new quill from my shelf and found that both of the bearings that should have been a "press fit" were easily removed and reinstalled by hand pressure. I "JB Welded" them in and have little hope they will last very long. Yep-they were made in China.

 

I had a similar experience with a made in China small trailer kit sold by Harbor Freight and Northern Tool used by a lot of autocross racers to transport their race tires and tools. I had a wheel bearing fail on the way to a race in FL. I bought a spare hub and bearings at the local Harbor Freight there and changed it. When I got home I checked and found there was a lot of slop in the bearings in both hubs, so I cross referenced the bearing #s to US made precision high speed bearings, figuring the cost would be offset with reliability since I was towing it all over the country. Surprise! the high quality bearings would not fit the hubs or axles! The axles themselves were nearly 0.03" undersized and was the source of all the freeplay even with the Chinese bearings that fit the hubs. I ended up buying two complete hub and bearing assemblies to carry as spares and repacked the bearings before every major trip. I tried to install a set of "bearing buddies": dust caps that have grease fittings and a spring loaded diaphram to continuously push the grease into the bearings, that were also sold at Northern Tool. One fit into one hub, but wouldn't fit the other (undersized) hub bore. I tried using just the one, but the pressure on the grease blew it out past the ill fitting inner seal on the undersize axle and coated the wheel in grease.

 

Good thing this is left as an opinion. And you know what they say about opinions. I happen to be a Mustang II enthusiast and have owned several of these cars. Cobras, Ghias, Coupes... in reality these are great compact cars, way ahead of their day. I still have one Cobra clone right now. These cars handled fantastically for their time, way better than any of the garbage the other American automakers were producing at that time. Yeah so they were underpowered... what wasn't back then thanks to the fedeal government, nothing a few bolt-ons couldn't fix. Look up Jack Roush's Sudden Death 460 powered Mustang II fastback he built in 1975. He mopped the streets of Detroit with that thing, nothing could touch it. Or look at the Monroe Handler Mustang II. Granted the Pinto shares a similar chassis but hardly comparable to the earlier (pre-'73) Pintos which were re-designed in '74. The Mustang II a horrible car? Hardly... Dodge Omni, or the pathetic Vega or Monza, now those were horrible cars. Other than the Vega's steering box, what do you ever see used on other vehicles from these prize compacts?

 

Hey, I had an Omni and liked it, and always wanted a Monza! To each their own.

 

Ha ha! What'd you like most about it... pushing it or trying to get it started?! Hey- somebody musta liked them, cause they did sell more then just a few of them.

Oh don't mean to be harsh, but us Mustang II guys are hit from all angles, even within our own brand/model. The early Mustang and Fox-Body guys are the worst. We just tell the fox-body guys that at least ours wasn't engineered after a Fairmont.

He're my Cobra clone car (no stripes) taken a few years back... only one I have in photo bucket at the moment.