Better Bearings for Fox Mustangs

1979-92 Mustangs are popular enthusiast cars in Canada, especially in their 5.0 litre V-8 form. It makes sense; they’re light, easy to build and best of all, cheap. Ford Motor Company made a running change to the front wheel bearings in all Mustangs at the beginning of the 1988 model year. Earlier cars were equipped with standard Timken tapered roller bearings with steel cages. Cars produced after this change shipped with Timken roller bearings with glass-filled Nylon 66 cages. These bearings are O.K. for street use, but in extremely high temperature applications, their reliability suffers. The Nylon roller cages can soften and distort, allowing the bearing to fail.

Fortunately, the steel-cage variants will retrofit into those later Fox-Mustangs. The part numbers for the steel-caged inner bearings are LM12749 for the bearing, and LM12710 for the race. For the outer bearing, the number is LM48548 for the bearing, and LM48510 for the race. These are available in sets also. If you’re there for a repack anyway, a track driver or “severe service” 5.0 can benefit from an upgrade.