pic: 25lb Drivetrain

[Harrison.Smith]

Originally Posted by Knufire

Yup!

There's two main benefits to using sliding bearing blocks: to better support the bearings and to be able to tension the chain. I'm not a big fan of adding tensioners where they might be unnecessary, and had pretty good luck running exact C-C #25 chain drivetrains in 2015 and 2016.

So the question is then, is putting the bearing straight in the tube sufficient support? This is game dependent; large impact loads on your wheels could cause the bearing holes to start to turn into ovals. However, for most games which have no or relatively small field obstacles, bearings straight in the tube should be fine.

Past 2 years we have ran WCDs. 2015 we ran C-C #25 and we had no outer support with the bearing going straight in the tube. That worked just fine, although RR wasn't very taxing on drives. This year we had a hybrid C-C #25 in tube and C-C #35 on the outside of the tube. We had 3/16 stiffener plates welded to the tube that had couterbores for the bearing. While the plates were there to stiffen the tube since we had a #35 chain run on the outside of the tube resulting in a large slot on the end of the tube, we had no problems with the bearing holes turning into the ovals that likely would have happened if the plates were not present.