Last year I got a Wheel Horse lawn sweeper. Not that I've got a big lawn, but I cut the grass on the village green.
That's number 3 grandson, not me.
While doing a neighbour a favour by cutting, then sweeping, her very large back lawn/field, one of the brush spindle bearings collapsed. On stripping things down, I found the other bearing not in the best of health either. I knew that getting OE bearings could pose problems, I decided to modify to metric bearings.
The difference in the outside diameters of the OE bearings was 2 thou. Two metric bearings were procured with 35mm o/d. These tapped nicely in to place.
The inside diam is greater than the brush spindles end inserts.
You can see where the worn bearings have scored the inserts. The plan is to turn up two sleeves, that will be heat shrunk onto the inserts, then turned down to suit the metric bearings I/d.