It take a heck of a lot to really **** me off, especialy to the point where I start smashing things and throwing spanners ......but this gearbox bearing got me past that point today

Here are some pictures to make sense of it all.













The main bearings are pressed onto the shafts on the outside of the casing, and they have a big circlip around the outside of the race, its sole purpose is for removing it......great farking idea mazda!!!!.

I have made a bearing puller out of 5mm think steel (ie SOLID as) and some parts of a brought bearing puller. I then used a "extra heavy duty" G clamp to clamp pressure onto the jaws of the pullers to stop them slipping apart and bending the big circlip.

The thing thats pissing me off is the circlips just give up and bend apart before you can get any where near enough pressure on the bearing to move it on the shaft??

Im going to buy a new circlip to replace the bent one.....but how on earth do I get this thing off? The main bearings are installed using no more then a hammer and pipe (not pressed on) so I wouldnt have thought it needed that much pressure to remove them.

The only thing I can think of is heating the inner race of the bearing up really really hot and hoping that it will require a lot less pressure to get it off that way???.....I can see myself getting very burnt doing that !!

Any ideas??

 

If I remember, it is a tough one.

The spring clip doesn't look like it's been rotated to give the jaws of the puller maximum purchase in one of your pics. I think I also had someone on tools on the other side of the input shaft in place of the service tool to help pry it out. Not sure I'd be putting heat, a la gas axe into it, maybe oven and a bit of freeze spray as a desperate option.

 

I had the snap ring rotated 90* to the jaws when pulling it as per the service manual, but it still wanted to bend the snapring.

I have two gearboxes here and they are both doing the same thing so its no likely this one has spun on the shaft and welded itself kinda thing (this gearbox was a good running box with the only issue being a cracked 5th syncro ring).

I was thinging of getting a small gas torch and using that as aposed to a gas axe (im rough, but not that rough haha). Failing that, I will just weld a couple of nuts on the outer race of the bearing and rip it out that way.

But being that there are 4 of these bearings to get out, I would rather find a better way to do it.

Has anyone had any luck getting these out easily?

 

I win! =D

Im a persistant ***** when I want to be! A braising torch to add a bit of heat worked wonders!.....after I cut the crap out of it! haha

 

Good job.

 

heh, oddly enough that is one of the easier bearings to get off the tranny. i have never encountered much trouble getting the circlip bearings off with just a medium prybar in the 2 notches working my way from one side to the other while tapping the prybar with my hand and tapping the input/output shafts with a dead blow plastic hammer.

the problem with your puller is that it will easily get cocked and offcenter, putting pressure on only one side of the bearing so it is getting locked up on that one side as you are trying to pull it out.

those bearings are not pressed in, they are a psuedo loose fit into the case and onto the main shaft. the only pressed on bearings in the tranny are the front counter shaft bearing race(top of your first pic), the 5th gear idler gear rear bearing and the output shaft rear bearings. the only one that needs a puller is the rear main shaft bearing.

i clearance the rear main shaft bearing on the trannies now so they can rather easily slide on and off the tranny, there was no need for it to ever be a press fit and that one can be a ROYAL pita sometimes!

 

Thats interesting ay. I have had the exact same issue with 2 boxes now. The rest of the bearings came off easily with the same puller and a little bit of heat.

Will be interesting to see how hard that inner race is to get off the input shaft.