Pilot Bearing Modification

[bbutcher85]

My son's Dodge Ram 2500 clutch failed and the pilot bearing needed replacing. The bearing consists of a roller bearing of approximately 1" OD X 3/4" ID in a metal spacer of approximately 1.812 OD. In removing the pilot bearing, only the roller bearing came out, leaving the spacer in the end of the crankshaft. The new bearing was soid as an assembly with the roller bearing pressed into the spacer. The bore in the old spacer was identical to the bore in the crankshaft, leaving no simple way to remove the spacer. I finally was forced to drill and tap holes in the spacer and fabricate a puller to extract it from the crankshaft, about a 2 hour job. Before installing the new bearing assembly I drilled and tapped three holes in the new spacer, 1/4-20 thread, to make it simple to extract if needed in the future. Next time three bolts can be screwed into the spacer forcing it out of the flywheel. In my opinion this is the way it should have been designed at the factory.

[NortonDommi]

The old pack it with grease and knock an appropriate sized drift in didn't work?

[Frank S]

I've encountered many things that I feel would a should could a been done better when designed.
my most recent one was an adjusting nut in the final drive of a trenching plow. the nut was installed then a pair of locking dowel holes drilled between the 9" diameter 18TPI nut and the housing then they drove in hardened dowels into the blind holes. in the service manual the instructions read drill a series of holes .625" deep. careful not to drill into housing then use a chisel to break the nut in half.
WHAT" how stupid is that why not thread the dowel holes and tap them for 3/8 24 and use fine thread flat point grub screws? even if you locktighted them in with blue you could still remove them to replace the seal or the bearing without having to risk damaging the housing or buy a new $400.00 nut.
The $50.00 seal wound up costing the additional; $400.00 plus an extra 2 hours labor for nothing.

[WmRMeyers]

I've encountered many things that I feel would a should could a been done better when designed.
my most recent one was an adjusting nut in the final drive of a trenching plow. the nut was installed then a pair of locking dowel holes drilled between the 9" diameter 18TPI nut and the housing then they drove in hardened dowels into the blind holes. in the service manual the instructions read drill a series of holes .625" deep. careful not to drill into housing then use a chisel to break the nut in half.
WHAT" how stupid is that why not thread the dowel holes and tap them for 3/8 24 and use fine thread flat point grub screws? even if you locktighted them in with blue you could still remove them to replace the seal or the bearing without having to risk damaging the housing or buy a new $400.00 nut.
The $50.00 seal wound up costing the additional; $400.00 plus an extra 2 hours labor for nothing.

They don't want you working on your own equipment. John Deere is notorious for that, among others. They say you're not allowed to work on your own equipment. They think that somehow it violates their copyright on the intellectual property involved in making that equipment.

[Frank S]

They don't want you working on your own equipment. John Deere is notorious for that, among others. They say you're not allowed to work on your own equipment. They think that somehow it violates their copyright on the intellectual property involved in making that equipment.

I don't find anything intellectual about designing something non repairable. Just the opposite in fact.
When something has to be destroyed at the risk of damaging more parts in order to replace a part that is or could be considered consumable under fair wear and tare.
It shows me a few things about the brand. Either the engineering department was too lazy or too inexperienced to think things through for the long term.
and the bean counters have too much control over product production sacrificing quality over quantity. then lastly the Corporation heads insisting on planned obsolescence to insure things fail with in a reasonable amount of usage to insure a continuing growth of sales betting on repeat business.
in the case of computers my son-in-law, a software designer of 20 years now tells me that for the average computer user there is nothing a computer of today can do for them that a computer running on 20 year old software couldn't have done back in the day using 100th of the systems core memory space.

[bbutcher85]

A few years ago a friend brought me her John Deere hydrostatic drive riding mower that stopped driving after about 300 hours on hour meter. John Deere claims the hydrostatic transmission is not servicable and must be replaced at a cost of about $1100. I located the actual manufacturer's tag on the transmission and their website. Parts and diagrams are available from them. I opened the case to see what might be wrong, and found a clogged oil filter. Replacing the filter and filling with new automatic transmission fluid had the unit going strong. There was no gasket between case halves, so a thin coating of RTV was used to seal it. Why John Deere would do something so stupid to aliennate customers is beyond me.

[WmRMeyers]

A few years ago a friend brought me her John Deere hydrostatic drive riding mower that stopped driving after about 300 hours on hour meter. John Deere claims the hydrostatic transmission is not servicable and must be replaced at a cost of about $1100. I located the actual manufacturer's tag on the transmission and their website. Parts and diagrams are available from them. I opened the case to see what might be wrong, and found a clogged oil filter. Replacing the filter and filling with new automatic transmission fluid had the unit going strong. There was no gasket between case halves, so a thin coating of RTV was used to seal it. Why John Deere would do something so stupid to aliennate customers is beyond me.

It's real simple. They have a racket going, and they're not getting called on it often enough, and people keep buying their stuff.

As long as it works for them, they have no incentive to do better.

Bill