Re: Clutch pilot bearing

[Daniel Gervais <itpmtlplant@videotron.ca>]

Eric,
Thanks for your insight on the subject. After reading it and looking thru
the Bently I see want you meant by pilot bearing,I somehow thought that
this must be a bearing behind the input shaft oil seal. I knew for sure
that the input shaft oil seal was faulty, because of the particular smell
transmission oil has plus the fact that oil droplets were coming out where
the tranny housing meets the engine block ( also no oil leak at drive
flange seal) Last weekend I took out  the transmission, changed the input
shaft and drive oil seal, clutch assembly and yes the pilot bearing. I
purchase the SACHS clutch kit KF122-01 wich I thought was kind of neat
because it includes the clutch, pressure plate, release bearing, pilot
bearing, grease for the spline and the clutch alignement tools  all for
260$cnd. 

Taking out that transmission was a long process. It took me all weekend,
but I wasted probably 6 hours in trying to remove the tranny without
disconnecting the exhaust pipe from the manifold. If someone on the list
has accomplished this, hats off because I think it imposible. mind you I
was about 3/4 inch short. In any case I happy I did the job.

Btw When I finished the job I opened the garage door at my friends house it
was snowing white flakes.... Please no more jobs like this before winter !!
----------
> From: Fluhr <ejfluhr@austin.ibm.com>
> To: itpmtlplant@videotron.ca
> Subject: Re: Clutch pilot bearing
> Date: Tuesday, November 10, 1998 5:36 PM
> 
My situation is this:
> > thinking that all my work was completed before winter sets in, my
> > transmission has begun to leak from the input shaft ( just when I
trought
> > everything was ok !!!)  I am thinking about either getting a scrapyard
> > tranny then rebuilt mine during winter or save some money get the parts
and
> > fix my transmission while I have it out
> 
> Daniel,
> 
> The pilot bearing is located in the crankshaft, and the output shaft
> of the tranny slides into it when you mate the tranny to the block.
> You do not need to take the transmission apart to get to the pilot
> bearing, you just have to remove it so you can take the pressure
> plate off of the flywheel and gain access to the flywheel/crankshaft.
> The two symptoms I experienced due to a bad/nonexistent pilot bearing
> were: (1) transmission oil leaking past the input shaft oil seal,
> especially at high rpms, and (2) notchy/hard shifting, epecially in 
> the lower gears (1,2,3) at higher rpms.  After replacing the pilot
> bearing, my tranny shifts reasonably smoothly at all rpms, and I had
> no oil leakage at the last track event that I attended (extreme high
> rpm running and shifting).
> 
> What leads you to believe that pilot bearing is your problem?  What
> kind of symptoms do you have with the transmission?  How do you know
> that the input shaft oil seal is leaking?
> 
> You have an '86 Coupe GT, correct?  When I installed new seals on the
> replacement tranny I bought for my Coupe, I took the opportunity to
> remove the differental housing cover and look at the differential.
> For a tranny with 110K miles on it, it looked very good.  The
> bearings and other parts in the transmission seem to be very beefy,
> and I think they would take a lot of abuse/mileage before giving
> out.  You may not have to rebuild the transmission (unless of course
> you WANT to, which is always a perfectly legitimate reason in my
> book  :-) if the pilot bearing or something else is the problem.
> 
> Later,
> Eric
> 
> ---
> Eric J. Fluhr                                Email: 
ejfluhr@austin.ibm.com
> 630FP Logic/Circuit Design                   Phone:  (512) 838-7589
> IBM Server Group                             Austin, TX