This is the bearing that causes the grinding in neutral (if it isn't the throwout bearing). I tried to cobble together a puller to remove the input bearing. But it keeps slipping off of the snap ring. Has anyone had success without the Mazda puller? Do tranny shops have something they can use to pull this bearing off?

I googled for standard transmission tools. However, the ones I found were too short. If I can't find a tranny shop to pull this bearing I may just buy the Mazda puller. Is there any interest for someone to buy it from me after I am finished with it?

 

You can't buy just the puller. They come as a set, are special order, and cost over $700. (I tried) You need to make the tool. Buy a sufficient sized 3-jaw puller, and cut the feet off and extend them. I got by with just a 2 jaw and extended the feet with some steel rod from home depot.

 

I rented a puller from autozone. it was out it two seconds.

 

It took me several hours to tear down the transmission to that level and you will need a special puller

 

And you need to look and see if the shaft has been damaged as well from the spalling on the bearing

 

I misread what bearing he was talking about.

 

The bearing that I THOUGHT needed to be replaced is a ball bearing, not the needle bearing. But I don't really know for sure. It can be removed after only removing the bell housing - a 30min job if you have the right tools. The extension housing doesn't need to be removed for this one. Did you all find that it was the needle bearing causing your rattling?

I tried Autozone's puller, but it didn't get the job done after extending it. I have some better pieces of metal to extend the puller this weekend. So I guess I will take another crack at it. The Mazda puller is $330 their cost. Looking at some other tranny pullers online, this price is actually almost reasonable.

 

With the front bearing bad I remove the shafts to check the smaller roller set in the back of the input shaft . A customer does not want to pay for the work twice so checking all has payed off several times in the past .

 

The growler is the large ball bearing. But you should definitely replace that needle bearing too if possible. Inspect the end of the mainshaft and inner race in the input shaft, because if the bearing has anything more than light wear it's likely that these are also worn.

What you need is a large two jaw puller that's either wide enough so that the jaws won't pop apart, or extend a smaller puller and build a clamp tool that prevents the jaws from popping off the snap ring. I have a large two jaw that just needs the jaw tips ground down (a lot) to fit in the pockets of the housing. I'll loan that out if someone is really interested, but first I need to get the jaws modified.

Like Garfinkle said, the Mazda tool is expensive, and the commercial pullers with similar design are equally costly.

Last time I removed one of these I needed to drill out the rivets in the ball cage, grind a groove in the inner and outer race enough to push the ***** out of the bearing. It took forever but it did work. Do not take a cutting/grinding tool near the tranny unless you are completely rebuilding the tranny and can thoroughly wash the housings and shafts later on.

Dave