Input bearing renewal

[ElFin]

Can anyone tell me the minimum amount of disassembly required to replace a bad input bearing? Can I just take off the input bearing retainer, that the throwout bearing slides onto, and work the old bearing off, or do I need to take the whole transmission apart?

 

[TheDeputy]

It will have to be diassembled completely. You might be able to keep the lower shaft in place, but that depends on what gear ratio's and input bearing you have.
Why do you think your input bearing is shot?

Antoon

 

[340GTSDart]

You do not have to take the whole thing apart. Take the bearing retainer off. Then you will see a small snap ring on the input shaft that fits up against the inner race of the bearing. You will also see a big snap ring that fits around a outer race. This keeps the bearing from going too far into the case. Remove this snap ring, then you can fit a bearing seperater in that groove and using a puller, remove the bearing from the input shaft. I had to do this but it's been about 2 years ago, I think that's about it.

 

[chignikred]

Speaking as some one who has rebuilt many 4 speeds, I say the only way one can change the bearing is to take the trans apart. The procedure of being able remove the bearing out the front by having a puller grab the bearing snapring groove is 'possible' but I am amazed previous writer was able to pull it off. (the task not the bearing, pun intended) It still begs the issue of how to press on the new bearing to proper fit, without the input shaft being slightly worn or undersized. One exception here, if you have the early 3.09 gear input, you could slide it out the front BUT the inner roll bearings will drop out. So one has bearings in the case and a harder job of assembly if you are trying to not remove the mainshaft and cluster out the back first.

Everyone hopes there is some 'shortcut' but there really isnt. Just comes down to paying for someone else's experience, or paying for you own time to learn how to do it. I might add that the service manual does a good job of explaining teardown sequence.

I really want to leave discussion with the point, that if the front bearing is noisy, the rear bearing needs attention to, and the synchro stop rings need changing, and oh by the way the counter shaft needle bearings likely need 12 of them changed at least too.

 

[Rob R]

I've done 100's of 833's and it's not worth the effort as mentioned above.Considering the time it takes to just knock it apart and just change the main drive gear brg and put it back together would be shorter than farting around trying to fish the brg out the front and beat the new brg back in without damaging the syncro or loosing the any of the 16 roller brgs in the case...Not A Good Idea IMHO

 

[Blownfish]

I've had numerous 4spd cars and I never had any trouble taking them out from the front. I just done the one in the fish last winter.

Just got to be careful and know what your doing.

 

[ElFin]

OK sounds like 2 schools of thought. My main issue is noise when in neutral. I guess the best approach would be to disassemble the unit. I'll learn more that way and my usual experience is that trying to do it the easy way often turns out to be harder. I have until the summer to think about it, anyway. Thanks for the in-depth responses.