What would be the cause of my pilot bearing just totally being distroyed? It is a brand new clutch kit. Installed it about 2500 miles ago and then the bearing blew up and all the internals of the bearing fell into the pressure plate and kept my transmission from shifting. Anyone have this problem before? Need some help on this one.

 

My money is that it wasn't sufficiently greased before installation. That or it was installed without the pilot bearing grease seal that is left out of most clutch "kits".

My second guess is that the input shaft bearing of the transmission is crap and putting extra strain on the pilot bearing.

Third guess is that it was a cheap bearing and self destructed on its own.

 

Most likely cause is because the pilot bearing got damaged on the clutch install.


-Ted

 

Also could be if you have a bad tranny mount and the tranny moves around a lot. I have a auto to manual swap and the bracket allows the tranny to bounce around a lil much and I think that's why I've been through two pilot bearings in the past year. Sucks ***** until I can get something better.

 

No, almost impossible...unless you didn't tighten the bell housing bolts???

Once the transmission is bolted to the engine, there is zero play between the engine and the transmission.
The bell housing has a couple hollow "dowels" which position the transmission exactly in relation to the engine.


-Ted

 

^ What he said.

 

Bingo. Overall Mazda pilot bearings are very durable, but are very easy to damage during install. Especially if the transmission is only loosly put in place and then drawn towards the engine with the bolts. Also make sure to lube the snout of the input shaft so you don't tear up the seal.

 

But if there is vibration in the whole system it doesn't seem impossible for there to be some vibration through the input shaft too, but I'm talking about this has happened when driving very hard on the car at the track, and the tranny does bounce around a bit. hmm...or maybe I should just stop buying cheap pilot bearings from kragen lol.

Oh bolts were tight*

 

Some great posts by people more qualified than me...one last question:

Was this a Mazda Pilot Bearing?

Also waiting for the other answers (seal in place(?), bolts used to jam toward engine (?) ) to shed some light.

Did you get a lot of clutch chatter (input bearing not well)?

 

I'd agree with the other posts.

1) installation damage

2) insufficient lube

3) excessive revving of the engine while the clutch pedal is pushed in (this is when the pilot bearing is forced to work)

 

Everything was put in like it was supposed to. I didnt pull the transmission to the engine I put it on full and then tightened. I did not lube the bearing. I didnt know I was supposed to... it was my first clutch install. Also... I didnt know there was a seal or something. It might be that the bearing was cheap. I am going to replace it with a new one from mazdatrix and get a whole new stage 3 clutch kit for the car. dont want anything else going wrong. thanks guys.. everything written was great insight and very informative.

 

Mazda FSM clearly show to lube the pilot bearing lightly with grease.
That's why there's a "grease seal".


-Ted

 

O.K. RETed, he learned his lesson, no need to rub it in...add another post to your count...nothing to see here...******* guy

 

Ok so it is grease, but I wasnt sure if it was some special kind. You know how these cars are! Some things have to be a certain type for them to work well...

 

I use white lithium grease on the pilot bearing and make sure to use a new grease seal everytime.

I wouldn't bust the guy's ***** about the seal. I haven't seen a clutch "kit" yet that includes it.

 

I use white lithium grease too...not sure where I read it, but maybe Haynes. The FSM (see my sig.) says "multipurpose grease" for what it's worth.

 

Molydneum disulfide grease is preferred.


-Ted