g260 pilot bearing stories?

[LEANE30]

Well i'm replacing my rear main and a bunch of other seals right now, when I got down to the rear main i noticed the obvious absence of a pilot bearing, in it's place (the tail stub of the crank) there was an abundant grimy pack of dust residue, i can only summise from the postings of others that this is what is left over from the previous pilot bearing.

Looking at the assembly pics on RealOEM and per the Bentley's poor direction, I am slightly hessitant to drive this new order of cover cap, felt ring, and cover plate into the end of the crank before the bearing, the depth seems appropriate, but i'm having a hard time believing that all of these new parts and in their appropriate order pictured below could have truely fully dissintigrated?

what do you all think, should i just drive these new parts in and not be concerned>? hmmm.

[xwill112x]

i just did the bearing and thats it. no probs

[reelizmpro]

Same here. My understanding is realoem shows the standard bearing with associated dust caps, etc. The later style bearing is a sealed unit, no need for the additional dust cap, etc. When I rebuilt my S14, it too had just the sealed bearing so I thought nothing of it.

[LEANE30]

I'm thinking that I will drive in just the sealed bearing as well if others have not been having problems doing similar. I would venture to guess that if the felt and the additional plates had been in there there would be more evidence/pieces left in there? maybe
it seems that if i drive in all of the parts, considering how tightly they fit into the crank stub, any room for error would be quite slim and could result in the bearing not fully installing to the proper clearance depth, once installed, the cover cap and plate may be extremely difficult to remove as there might not be enough remaining hollow depth within the crank stub's cavity to get the bearing puller's teeth to grab it.

Talkin outloud, sorry, thanks for the personal experience stories fellas!

[Wanganstyle]

the semi-modern 90's style Pilot bearings are sealed units with no foam, dust cover etc; just like installed in a M50.

the very modern bmw's (2005++) have done away with that design entirely and has a pilot bearing in the flywheel or transmission imput shaft.

Old school felt thing and dust cover etc are Moot!

[LEANE30]

cool. definately will forego the old school felt considering the bearing is a sealed newer unit.

You have some pretty good threads in your sig there Wangan,...i should really log on to read threads more often...