A couple of days after I 'glued' the pilot bearing into the egg-shaped and tapered hole in the crankshaft, I backed the transmission away from the engine and lowered it to the ground. The pilot bearing is centered and snugly glued in place. Jerry's suggestion of using the tranny to align the bearing was spot on! ;-) See photo number 53.
Before I can re-install the transmission for the last time, I need to replace the throw out bearing. A number of years ago, I replaced Lurch's carbon disk throw out bearing with a newer style ball bearing assembly. Rather than buy a whole new throw out bearing assembly, I can just replace the ball bearing and move on.
The ball bearing is press fitted onto the throw out bearing assembly body, so I machined a spacer so I can press the bearing off of the body. This was made from a pipe connector/reducer (see photo 54).
To heat up the old throw out bearing assembly, I put it in the sun for a couple of hours (see photo 55). Then I put it in my giant C-clamp press (see photo 56) and was able to separate the bearing from the housing. ;-) See photo 57 with the bearing and body circled in green.
I took the old bearing to a local bearing house and they hooked me up with a new 613001 BCA ball bearing replacement for $57. This is way cheaper than buying a new whole throw out bearing assembly for $125.
I noticed that there was some green bearing cement on the old body, so I scraped it off with a razor blade to get ready for the new bearing.
I measured the inside diameter of the new bearing (1.376 inches) and the outside diameter of where it is going to go on the body, which was 1.375 inches. So it is a .001" interference fit.
To put the new bearing onto the old body, I put the body in our freezer for a couple of days (don't tell the Wife - She who must be obeyed) and put the bearing in the sun for a couple of hours. I put a small amount of the Loctite 680 on the body to make sure the bearing would stay put. The sun's heat expanded the bearing and the freezer contracted the body so that they just slipped together without any force. ;-)
I wiped the extra Loctite away and let the temperature of the assembly normalize. Viola! The throw out bearing assembly is now ready for re-installation.
The next post will cover the re-installation of the transmission.
