Input shaft chewed up. Now what?
 

So, I finally pulled my T56 trans to change my clutch, only to find the stock pilot bearing had destroyed itself and in turn, chewed up the end of the input shaft.

I still have to try to get the remains of the old bearing/bushing out of the crank, but I did try fitting the new roller pilot bearing on the shaft and there is some noticeable play. So obviously now the trans will not be going back in yet. It appears, when the transmission was replaced/rebuilt for the previous owner, they could not get the bellhousing off so they put it all back together will the old clutch setup. Even the throwout bearing looks strange and like it ate itself up.

Where should I take the transmission to have it checked out/fixed?
I'll try to post some pics up tomorrow.

oh jeeze.

If I was to have mine rebuilt, I'd be sending it off to tick for a level 1 rebuild. im sure someone knows of a local shop though.

Ditch the roller pilot bearing and get a new bushing.

If your input shaft is that chewed up, I'd recommend having the trans gone through.

You could PM Larry (TaKid455) to see if his trans guy is interested in taking a look. Hanlon is a couple hours away in PA as well.

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And I made a quick video trying to show the amount of play in a new roller bearing, but i haven't been able to link it yet.


edit: maybe this will work... https://www.flickr.com/photos/130556...posted-public/

That looks like an oilite bushing that disintegrated. When my pilot bearing failed and chewed up the shaft the OEM units were backordered for several months already and no aftermarkets were available, so I cleaned it up with emery cloth and slapped it back together with a bushing. It lasted 50k miles before the bushing turned to dust exactly like that.

As soon as the symptoms came back I pulled it apart again. Due to the likelihood that some extra wear had already occured I gambled and just dropped a $125 aftermarket shaft in from the front with the T56 standing in a bucket. No issues so far.

I believe my issue was likely caused by a missing dowel pin allowing a slight misalignment, because I never pulled the transmission in by the bolts and the bearing failed with very low miles on it

Its not as bad as I first thought, but there's definite wear that I need to have a shop check out. I bought the car with 145k miles back in November. It had higher rpm clutch issues since I got it. The previous owners parents were the sellers and didn't know everything about the car. Just that it had a replacement trans recently. Right away I bought an ls7 clutch kit with a new slave and stainless steel hard clutch lines etc etc. I was just waiting for time to do the swap. When the starter finally died, I figured now was the time. I have a feeling that when the transmission was replaced(or rebuilt?) They never went as far to even remove the bellhousing or the clutch. The trans is fairly clean(painted silver) but the bell was old dirty/greasy aluminum. It took me a good 45min to an hour to get the bell off. Those dowel pins were corroded and stuck tight. The bell was on straight though without any visible misalignment. The trans to bell dowel pins looked better and came apart easy. The clutch looked like you would think a 145k mile clutch would look, lol. The amount of hot spots was amazing. I definitely didn't burn the clutch like that in 2k miles. Also, the slave looks odd to me. The throwout bearing is a style i've never seen before. The surface that touches the pressure plate fingers is like a big flat washer, separate from the rest of the bearing. All ls-based throwout bearings i've seen are like a donut, no washer.The slave body itself is also black which is not oem, so no clue of brand. So perhaps when the last guy put the trans in, they pulled in tight with the bolts and damaged the pilot bearing. My main concern is if the input shaft is bent. I guess I could try to get a dial indicator and try to measure any run-out.
I have to rent a blind hole puller to get the remaining piece of the pilot bearing out this weekend. Then I have to see what to do about the trans. I could just throw it back together and see how long it can last. Keep in mind, I paid 3k for the entire car. I'm not building a race car out of it(yet, lol) so a performance or stage 2 or + rebuild is not necessary nor desired.


Aside for the trans issue, the bolts on the cat/mid pipes all broke/needed to be cut, so that might mean a header swap might be a cheaper fix lol.


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Can't do the grease/punch trick to push out the remaining ****?

Well, I had a 3 jaw bearing puller I had modified for LS pilot bearings. Worked great in the past. Now its a 2 jaw.. snapped one leg right off. Whats left of the bearing is in there pretty good.

The LS has a freeze plug that will push into the crank before the bearing comes out

Update: Ended up buying an OTC Tools brand blind hole puller. Took me longer to take it out of the package than it did to get that old pilot bearing out with it. LOL. Like 10 hits on the slide hammer and it was out. Transmission went to the shop about 2 weeks ago. Input shaft, front seal and bearing were all found to be junk. All replaced. I picked it up today finally. I also put in the replacement starter today as well as a new rear cover with a new rear main seal, old one was leaking. I also swapped in new e-brake cables. Once that was done, I cleaned the bellhousing very well, making sure all the surfaces between the block, bellhousing and trans were all flat and smooth. Its possible the transmission was previously installed slightly crooked due to corroded dowel/alignment pins and some grease/gunk residue left on the bellhousing edge where there shouldn't have been anything. The car got a new lower interior shift boot and the trans got a new shifter dust boot which was missing. I then installed the new slave cylinder onto the trans along with a remote bleeder line. I then tackled the task of installing hard/braided stainless clutch lines to replace the factory ones in the car which have a rubber section that swells and deteriorates. That was a pain due to the very limited space, but it got done. Later in the afternoon, I installed the LS7 clutch kit, new pilot bearing, and ARP flywheel bolts. Then this evening I finally put the transmission back into the car. Everything that is in the car now is bolted up and torqued down.


Tomorrow the goal will be to get the aftermarket 1-piece driveshaft back in the car and bolt up the new magnaflow catback exhaust. I'll also be doing an oil change, new spark plugs, fixing a small coolant leak where the front rad hose clamp is, and then I'll install a new BMR skid plate. Then its just a matter of bolting the shifter handle back up and putting the center console back together. After that, the car should be able to come down off the wooden stands and get back on the road. It'll be 2 months tomorrow since the car got put up in the air.




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Glad to see you are getting it buttoned up and back on the road.

It'll be like driving a new car once your done!

Today was fun.

Woke up this morning only to realize I had forgotten to measure the Throwoutbearing-to-pressure plate clearance to see if it needed to be shimmed. Even though its a stock style LUK ls7 setup, it seems to be recommended to measure anyway and since I did have previous disengagement issues, I wanted to check. So... this morning, I pulled the trans back out and measured. I ended up with a clearance of right around 0.2779". From my online reading, a distance of 1/8"-1/4" is where I'd want to be. Tick performance says that the range is like 0.125"-.200". So since I already had their shim pack, I installed the 0.055" shim, and ended up with a distance of right around 0.2207". I was happier with that so I put it all back together.


I then had to remove the 4 broken bolts from the catalytic convertor pipe flanges, so I could try to bolt up the new catback. That took forever, but I managed to save 3 of the 4 threaded holes. Only had to drill 1 out then re-tap it. Tomorrow I have to get the 4 M10x1.25 bolts. Then I reinstalled the 1-piece aftermarket driveshaft. Next I hung the Magnaflow catback temporarily, only to find out the new oem rubber hangers hold the mufflers too close to the 3.5" driveshaft. Basically the hangers pulled the mufflers tight against the DS. Soooo, had to run out and find rubber hangers that would work. Found a pair at autozone that hold them about 3/4" lower. More than enough room now.



Tomorrow, I have to tighten up the exhaust, tighten up the rear DS bolts, do an oil change, drain and refill the transmission, assemble the center console, bleed the clutch and maybe do the spark plugs.

Car is back on the road and good to go. Feels good to finally be able to shift at higher rpms, lol. Now I can get back to my Monaro Conversion.