Series 3 Crappy parts

I've started to take apart the series 3 I bought a few weeks back and discovered the steering column bearing was a little past it's prime, see the photo below. So I bought a new one from Bear****e and was a little put out at what can only be described as a slightly rough bearing. The best description would be ball bearings lubed with grinding paste! It was that rough I took it apart to make sure the balls were round and not square and found only the mearest hit of anything resembling grease. I gave the running surfaces a rub down with some fine sand paper and packed it with grease and the transformation was, well minimal TBH it's better but not exactly greased lightening. So what brand is any good for parts and I've noticed on ebay they very rarely state a manufacturer of the parts. From what I have now read it looks like the fun starts fitting the damned thing.
I've been taking pics as I go so when I get to the chassis I will post some pics. On the plus side the chassis is looking quite good apart from the dumb irons and the rear crossmember. Oh and the bulkhead is looking not too bad.

take the old 1 to a local bearing specialist there is 1 in most towns and get them to supply you a decent 1 of the same size it what I do

LordOWar said:

and I've noticed on ebay they very rarely state a manufacturer of the parts.

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Which means cheapest available, which invariably means the Blue Bag o' ****e.

I re used my old housing with new bearing...the patten one I bought was crap....

Not really much of mine left to use! I am wobering where all the missing balls went.

I had to modify both the inner shaft and outer tube to get the bearmach bearing I bought to fit. The shaft needed about 1mm skimmed off its OD. the outer tube also needed to be bored out about 1mm larger.

Obviously most people don't have access to a lathe.

yay. My farther in law has a lathe so we will see what I need to do when I get round to fitting it. We could do with starting a list of what parts are ok and what are utter ****e.

The good news is that the front dumb irons and rear crossmember are readily available for a reasonable price and are relatively easy to align and weld on regards. Chris