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.