My pilot bearing tore itself to small chunks and dust at 113,000 mi. I beat and pried the last remnants of the needle bearing housing out of the pilot bearing sleeve, but I've been unable to remove the sleeve. It looks like I have a sleeve but, after trying to remove it, I'm not so sure.

Does anyone know?

As best as I can measure with calipers, what appears to be a sleeve (pressed into the end of the crank) is 1.00" ID (to press-fit with the needle bearing OD) and 1.73 OD (to press-fit into the end of the crank).

The only way I might be able to remove it is to drill and tap three holes into the face to hold a matching steel plate and try my slide hammer again.

My NV3500 input shaft is galled a bit but I think it will run okay, if it's not running directly on needle bearings.

Thanks for the help!

-Cal

 

Yes-----it is actually the outer race of the needle bearing assembly.

They are a PIA to get out, but it MUST come out before you can install the new one

The tool normally used to remove the entire pilot is an inside expanding puller mounted to a small slide hammer. Last one I purchased came from northern tool several years ago when I rebuilt the trany in my --now gone-- RX7.

Get a 1/2 or 5/8" round wire brush and clean out the end of the crank shaft real good, use brake cleaner to flush it out and degrease it, use a strong penlight, and with a little luck, you be able to see the inside end of the outer race.

I've use a very small well sharpened cold chisel to pick up the outer edge which allowed me to cave the outer race in, in the bearing housing, then remove it.
Great care must be used to do this as the bearing bore must be clean and "dent free" before the new bearing is installed or the outer race will be damaged and the new bearing won't last long.

Hope this helps

Good Luck!!!

 

Thanks very much. Your post is very, very helpful, Gone Fishin. I was beginning to wonder whether I was attempting the impossible!

 

The needle bearing is out but I haven't been able to remove the pilot bearing sleeve. There's not much of a lip on the sleeve to grab with a slide hammer. My next approach would be to drill and tap the face of the sleeve in three or four places to secure a plate for the slide hammer to screw into.

But, instead, I think I'll leave the sleeve in place for this job. My input shaft is galled and it's a bad time for me to tear down the transmission. I think an Oilite bushing will work much better than re-installing a needle bearing onto my galled input shaft. After reading many online reports of pilot needle bearing failures, I think an Oilite bushing might be better than needle bearings anyway, regardless of the condition of the input shaft

I'd hoped to find a sealed bearing with both an inner and outer race so the needles or rollers would not ride on the input shaft. I ordered a Timken FC69907 pilot bearing, which comes with the sleeve. Unfortunately, the needle bearings still ride directly on the input shaft instead of riding on an inner race. My Valeo clutch kit came with a needle bearing that's intended to press-fit into the original sleeve. It's 1" OD / 3/4" ID x 0.56" long. If I trim an Oilite bushing to 3/4" long, it will overlap, both fore and aft, over pristine sections of the input shaft. I expect to receive a 2" long Oilite bushing from Ebay within the next day or two that I can modify.

My pickup has 113,000 miles on it and the clutch (and hopefully the transmission) had a lot of life left in it when the pilot bearing seized. It's irritating that a $5 part that is likely to fail within 100,000 miles ruins a $200 part (plus transmission tear down costs) when it fails.

 

I feel your pain, I have an input shaft sitting on my work bench that I'm going to have metalized then ground to tolerance. Fortunately, the G56 in mine is also used in the cummins edition and has a sealed inner/outer race bearing, but the locating hub in the back of the crank will at some point have me getting some custom machine work done to fit the better bearing. I also agree on the Oilite, which is "old school" but they lasted forever.
It would really help to get the rest of the sleeve out, a little dressing on the input then the oilite, and some high pressure grease perhaps.

The input on mine ran $700----that really hurt. On a side note, when its time for a clutch assembly, Southbend Clutch builds a very high quality, high clamping pressure setup without the high pedal force. Kevlar disc too, sprung center---and it doesn't rattle like the stock disc.

If you don't have it, weed has a link setup for the FSM to download free. PM him, he'll get you there. I have the 2005 on CD if that doesn't pan out----I'll just burn you a copy-------it really helps.

 

>The input on mine ran $700----that really hurt.

Yikes! No wonder you are going to have it re-ground. My NV3500 shaft is only around $200, but then add another $250-$300 for the overhaul kit, which makes sense while it's apart, and it gets expensive.

I found the 2004 FSM. I think it was from a link somewhere in these forums. It's nice because it contains the NV3500 FSM too. I know people advise that the NV3500 is a tough home overhaul, but I'll probably tackle it someday when I have more time. I have a good home shop with a number of hobby machine tools and can make most tools when necessary. I overhauled a couple of other manual transmissions in my youth and drove them for close to 100,000 miles before I sold them.

One of them yielded the highest return on a car project I've ever made. I got a TR-6 sports car that smoked, squealed, vibrated, and rattled, and wouldn't rev beyond about 2000 rpm. After replacing the transmission bearings (and other stuff while at it), PCV valve, and freeing up the centrifugal advance weights, I drove the thing for several years. It was a beauty! Sold it for $6500 after paying $1500. This was years ago. Parts were cheap.

 

I'm updating this thread, because long-term reports can be useful to others.

I'm approaching 180,000 mi. on my 3.7L Ram 1500 now. I've certainly abused it by hauling a somewhat heavy (for a 1500) truck camper and also snow plowing over 1/2 mile of driveway with an 88" blade for the past four Idaho winters. Yup--it's only 2WD with a Yukon LSD in the rear end but chains on all four wheels for control on the somewhat hilly driveway. (I don't want to trash my nice 2500 Cummins Bighorn plowing! )

So I totally wore out the clutch but I'm very happy with its service life, given my usage. I'm even happier with my decision to use a customized Oilite pilot bushing instead of the fragile needle bearings that tore up my transmission input shaft.

The bushing didn't really have much wear on it, but I easily pulled it with a slide hammer, cut and faced the last piece of bushing left over from my first clutch and bushing install, and installed the new bushing with my new clutch.

I'm still running my original transmission (never overhauled it) and input shaft. The Oilite bushing works good / lasts long--even with the needle bearing galling on the input shaft.