Pilot bearing

[a5150nut]

Whats the trick to remove one of these? I tried a screw in grease fitting set up from parts store, no luck. I'm thinking a small cold chisle and take it out in pieces. Tried a slide hammer, have to return that POS to Harbour Frieght for my money back.

[DmaxMaverick]

Bearing or bushing?

If it's a bushing.....
Tap it, screw in a bolt and crank away (use lots of grease). If it's seized in, you may have to remove it by pieces. Drilling it out close to the OD helps, just be careful to not hit the crank ID with the bit.

If it's a bearing, you may have to chisel it out. Be careful with the crank material. A good slide hammer should have worked. At least, it should have pulled the center out of it.

When you replace it, the bushing works much better, in all respects.

[a5150nut]

It looks like a bearing inside a bushing. Bearing part is gone now and bushing is breaking up. Thought about using a bolt but a 5/8 wouldn't grab enough and 3/4 was way to large. Lost my daylite but it looked like bronze shell with the bearing riding inside. Try a small cold chisel tomarrow.

Part store had a tappered screw in piece with a greese fitting in the end. Pumped greese into it but bearing wouldn't budge.

[DmaxMaverick]

The grease zerk removers usually work well, but if it was a bearing, all bets are off. You could try a Dremmel to cut a curf in the outer race and try to curl it in. I think that would minimize damage. Avoid dinging the crank as much as possible.

[Hubert]

Why did the slide hammer not work?

I "borrowed" one from Autozone or Advanced Auto and it pulled my OE bearing out ok. The needles had chewed up the outer race pretty good and what was left was a mess. First time the puller slipped and I had to work with the gripper better. The quality of the tool might make all the difference.

Might try to squirt some penetrant the hole to help lubricate bushing/crank interface too.

Good luck.

Anyone have any experience with the Kevlar bushings as opposed to the bronze???

[trbankii]

Too late now, but my usual way of taking out pilot bearings is to fill up the cavity behind it with grease or wet paper towels/newspaper, turn a dowel to the appropriate size on the lathe, and then tap that into the hole. Bumps the bearing right out.

[a5150nut]

It was a fight all the way. Slide hammer broke, homemade puller (bolt, socket, and two wedges cut from 3/8 pipe) broke a chunk of the outer lip off. So.......drill and chissel. Had to fight it down to the last little piece left i there. Dont know what was holding it, bu t damn stubborn. When I went to reinstall the fly wheel, I noticed the center hex bolts were all loose and no sign of locktight on them either. Disasembled flywheel cleaned and re assembled with locktight. Works fine now. No more chater. New clutch works nice.

Thanks for all the input!

[trbankii]

Too late now, but my usual way of taking out pilot bearings is to fill up the cavity behind it with grease or wet paper towels/newspaper, turn a dowel to the appropriate size on the lathe, and then tap that into the hole. Bumps the bearing right out.

Just as a followup, now it is my turn and that trick is NOT working for this one...

[trbankii]

Ok, finally got the bugger out...

Picked up one of these at Horrible Fright: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=4876

Wasn't quite sure if it wouldn't just break one of the arms on the first use, had to straighten the legs out so that they would come together properly, and had to grind down the "heads" of the legs so that they would fit into the center of the pilot bearing. But I cannot complain for the price...

[trbankii]

Wanted to add as a followup that I used a Craftsman steering wheel puller to press the new bearing into place. Had to modify the crosspiece slightly so that the bolts for the flywheel would fit it.

[simon]

Wanted to add as a followup that I used a Craftsman steering wheel puller to press the new bearing into place. Had to modify the crosspiece slightly so that the bolts for the flywheel would fit it.good job,looks professional, but putting pressure on the inner race is not doing the brg any good though. in a case like that i use a socket or piece of pipe slightly smaller then the bore ,to fit the outer race and tap it in place with the hammer.

with a pull adapter to hook inside the brg your setup will be good to get the brg out though.

[trbankii]

The bearing is the Kevlar bearing from South Bend Clutch - so no worries about pushing on just the inner race as it is a solid piece of Kevlar.

If I had been using a conventional bearing I would have been sure to use something that distributed the pressure out to the outer race, but thanks for your comments so that someone else doesn't come along and make a mess of things in their own situation!