The crank on my 258 had a pilot bearing that had the needle bearings in it. The PO had told me that he couldn’t keep pilot bearings in this thing so went to this one and it didn’t last either. I have a brand new AX15 so this was coming out. I’m in the process of rebuilding the engine anyway, and even if the bearing wasn’t bad it was the wrong size for the new trans. My first experience trying to remove one of these and I’m not a fan. I have always dealt with the bronze bushing type and usually used a chisel to break the bushing in half. I got this puller in photo from Harbor Freight and was only able to get the inner cage and the needle bearings out. Many many many attempts and I could not get it to move. I tried heat with a propane torch but couldn’t get it hot enough so used the oxy acetylene smoke wrench and heated it as far as I was comfortable heating the crank. I tried this 3 deferent times with no luck. So the next day I figured I had nothing to lose so I heated it up a lot more threw the puller on and presto, the inner bearing sleeve came out. I reinstalled the puller and main part came right out. I was very happy because I was now into the second whole day trying to get this fffffff,,, bearing out. One other job that needed to be done was extracting a broken exhaust manifold bolt in the head. I was able to drill through it fairly easily and the extractor took it right out. This never happens to me, I was already pricing long blocks because I was pretty sure I would need a crank and head. Jeep gods were smiling on,,,,,,,taking pity on me.
Pilot bearing
- Thread starter ytradio
- Start date
you done a good job, thanks for showing us you puller, i have had several tell me that HF pullers are not the best and you proved that once again.that also a good job on your broken bolt. hope your overhaul goes as well, keep us up dated on work.
Honestly I think the puller done a pretty good job, it was the inner stainless bearing sleeve that caused all the problem. The puller would tighten up on the lip and then that sleeve would let it slide over it. Once the inner sleeve finally came out the main part pulled just fine. I will never use one of these types of pilot bearing.