Flywheel pilot bearing

[jakub]

Few comments about pilot bearing. Since it is buried deep down in the engine it gets forgotten. TM manual recommends to grease it whenever possible, but the only possibility is when clutch is out. I would recommend don’t bother to grease it, just exchange it if you have a chance, bearing cost next to nothing while getting there is pretty complicated.

As for bearing itself the TM lists GM-907109 which corresponds to Timken 7109, I couldn’t get such bearing and asked Rex Ward of http://www.dukwparts.com/ for a help and he send me NKE 6202-2RS2. There is difference in size and details, namely original is 35x15x9 and has one sided cover while new is 35x15x11 and has rubber protection from both sided. However the recess in flywheel is deep enough so if anything new bearing is better since its wider and protected against dust.

And finally why do I cover pilot bearing in such detail ??
Since getting my GMC to run 8 years / 12000 miles ago, there was a slight noise when on neutral with depress clutch. I was pretty sure the clutch release bearing was causing this. Years ago I even replace it but without much difference.
Additionally on some event just at the beginning of my GMC driver career I was approached by elderly gentleman and after some conversation he asked :
do you have noisy release bearing ??
I do, I answered,
Don’t worry, he said, it’s the way it is with this truck,
So I didn’t worry
Its only now I have realised that it was pilot bearing not clutch release making noise.