So I apparently missed this in my initial inspection. This stat gear bearing has some copper showing and a few little grooves in the worn spot where it looks like a piece of sand had some fun. The picture shows the spot, it's not worn across the whole bearing nor more than a quarter of the way around, which makes me think it's only worn because some crap got in there and was eventually removed. I need to know what kind of bearing life I might expect from this if I reuse it. From reading some of Scathcart's comments in an archived rebuild thread I think he would reuse it (I will PM him), but others would not. The FSM is vague about how much wear Mazda deems acceptable. I'm ready to build this bitch, I would like to reuse this bearing if I should be able to get 40k+ miles out of it. By that time I will probably have had enough time to work on another rebuild geared toward more power and an upgraded turbo.

 

My completely noob about bearing wear answer would be no.
I think the 'no' area is about 50% of the bronze showing or a full line across. It looks like your is starting to wear all the way across. Though it could be just the flash of the camera that makes it look like that.

 

That bearing is... 'ok' at best. If you can afford it I would definitely replace it now rather than have it fail later.

Remember: Do it right, do it once.

 

 

I guess I should hit the bus and head over to Arnold MS again to get the part into the queue.