lostinthe202

Nah, disassembling a roller bearing would be a challenge.

The OD I can see on a centerless or cylindrical grinder, not much of a problem there. I'm having trouble picturing how you'd do the ID without taking the bearing apart, but then the world of grinding isn't really my forte. I've mostly just used surface and blanchard grinders

This is intriguing, you mean you've had off the shelf bearings ground to a different size? Who did you use? I'd love to see the setups for that. I'm a machinist by trade, but my experience with grinding is limited to typical machinist needs, pedestal grinders, surface grinders, Blanchard grinders, etc. I'm having trouble picturing how one would grind the OD or the ID of a bearing with disassembling it. Maybe that's exactly what they do?

Yeah, I don't know enough about the setup. I was thinking, that the bearing sandwich would be replaced by a chromoly ring that the belt would ride on, that had a bearing bronze sleeve pressed in to ride on a shoulder bolt with whatever width bearing bronze spacer necessary to put the pulley in the right place so the belt tracks right. The shoulder bolt's head flange would want to not be any larger than the bronze sleeve so it doesn't contact the chromoly. The spacer and the shoulder bolt would be the tight-tolerance items as they would establish position. Well the bore too obviously, but that's easy, either boring it or a reamer of the right size. Buuut, all that said, is it actually cost effective? And how many engine hours that setup would last, no idea, but nowhere near a proper bearing set. Of course THAT said, if it sees light use and the point is just to keep it on the road without spending $700 or whatever on a timing kit just to get those bearings. Could be a fun project.

This is true, but I doubt the rpm ist a problem, it's called bearing bronze for a reason, and it's used in electric motors and other stuff, though not sure. But you're right on the side loading. That's something I forgot about in relation to the bearing setup in question. The last bronze pilot bearing I changed in this '94 Nissan pickup I had that had a vibration at certain speeds and I had convinced myself that the pilot bearing was shot, pulled the trans and it had the bearing bronze style and sure enough it looked beat to poo, I pressed it out and replaced, put everything back together, vibration still there, made absolutely no difference, ha. Live and learn. Anyway, the point is that a bronze pilot bearing can get malformed and still do it's job just fine because even though malformed, the lubricity of the material was still there, and the input shaft/trans setup can take up a bit of slack, but the timing pulleys, I wouldn't think, would have the same forgiveness I'm a little rusty on my Subaru engine lore, they didn't make an interference engine before the 96+ 2.5 dual cam right? Or to put it another way, any stock engine for an XT6 wouldn't be interference, so in theory if Gary wanted to give it a shot, if it went south the worst that happens is he's trying to call for a tow truck at 3:00am in a blizzard while being chased by bears and malevolent clowns juggling chain saws , right?

Hey Gary, If that doesn't work out, Rick's suggestion of an oilite bronze replacement would be easy for me to whip up if you want to try it out. I don't really have any clue what the bearing in question looks like, but bronze plain bearings are used all the time for pilot bearings in standard trans of various makes, so might be they'd do just fine. But that said, a trans input shaft hardly needs to stay as rotationally true as a camshaft, so who knows. If you feel like shipping the old bearing to me, I can make one and you can guinea pig your engine Will- Edit, Rick sent me a pic of the bearings in question. Bearing bronze might work, but it's expensive, could maybe still be cost effective if say just make a bronze sleeve pressed into a 4140 (chromoly) steel ring, still not hard to make. Let me know, Gary, if you want to talk it over.

Ah, gotcha

I don't know what a speedy sleeve is, a shim basically right? But any kind of shim is going to require material to be removed from either the cam or the sea so that the same geometry is maintained, right? Or am I not understanding how that works?

I don't know the numbers for the diff backlash, but there def is some. If you're gauging the backlash by how much the tire rotates, remember that the rotation of the axle at the axle's diameter of something like 1.25" inches and the tire at something like like 24" is going to look dramatically different. Watch an analog clock that has a second hand. The tip shows much more movement than a point on the hand close to the hub. Add to that motion that when you rotate the tire, you're not only taking up the backlash for the side you're rotating, but also the backlash for the tire on the other side of the diff. Do you have access to another vehicle? Jack that one up and do the same thing, bet you see the same motion.

This thread is three years old, dude

Don't forget to use a cutting fluid when tapping those holes. If you have a good hardware nearby, they'll have something. If not, just search online for "tapping fluid" just about anything that comes up will work fine. Once you have the pieces apart, if you can see the broken pieces of the woodruff key, try knocking them out with a flathead screwdriver you don't care about. If you're feeling brave, WD40 will do in a pinch, just make sure you're using a new tap

You know, I never thought about replacing the cup holder. I have the same problem in my '00 wagon. My coffee cup fits in the console cup holder, but it means I'm wresting my arm on the top of it when I'm shifting (5mt) so i get lint and other crap in the lid. Cup didn't fit the one on the dash so I widened it out with an 80 grit flap wheel on my die grinder. Not the most elegant solution, but it was effective and didn't take long. Had the nozzle of my shop vac right below it so the dust cleanup was pretty minimal.

Maybe put it on four jack stands, run it in gear and listen with a stethoscope (or a long screwdriver with your ear to the handle) to both the center dif and the front dif areas, see which is noisier?

I figured cast Al, but surely not solid on the inside, probably a lattice work of some sort? Is there a weld seam visible?

Aluminum alloys have the advantage of having a lot of flex, meaning it can be bent further than steel can and spring back to it's original dimensions . I don't doubt that Al replacements are a thing, with the right geometry, Al would do nicely. Just curious what that geometry is. The auto industry is hard pressed to meet MPG standards, so lightening the vehicle weight has got to be part of that equation