Help ASAP: Can't pull pilot bearing!

[ryan_george]

I'm under the knife trying to get this motor done before I go back to school, and I can't seem to get the damn pilot bearing out. Do I need a special tool? I can't find any pullers that'll get inside the bearing and actually work...
Thanks in advance.

[Jordan]

Re: Help ASAP: Can't pull pilot bearing!

I can't find any pullers that'll get inside the bearing and actually work...

Thats because you....

need a special tool

[NickP]

There's a couple of ways to remove it - what everyone says is to pack the pilot bearing and the whole area behind it with grease and then whack the opening with a bolt that is just smaller than the inner diameter.

That didn't work for me.

I fit the short part of a spare allen key behind the pilot bearingand then put a bolt into the hole. I then pulled on the long part of the allen key and the pilot bearing popped out.

[BS87]

Sometimes they just pull out. Other times you need to go to autozone or something and just rent a bearing puller.

[erik325i]

The grease trick didn't work for me, so i just went to Auto Zone and rented the pilot bearing puller and a slide hammer. The tool has two arms that you stick into the hole of the pilot bearing and the end of the arms are bent out so it hooks onto the back of the pilot bearing. The two arms of the tool wouldn't fit into the hole of the pilot bearing, so I had to use only one of the two arms and hold it in with one hand and use the slide hammer with the other.

ps. Auto Zone rents tools for free

[MR 325]

All you need to do is fill it with wet newspapaer , pack it in there, and it will eventually pop out

[ryan_george]

All you need to do is fill it with wet newspapaer , pack it in there, and it will eventually pop out

You sir, are a genius. Packed it with a hell of a lot of paper, and it popped right out.
I'd buy you a beer if I didn't live a thousand miles away. :pimp:

[MR 325]

:)

[Julien]

All you need to do is fill it with wet newspapaer , pack it in there, and it will eventually pop out

You sir, are a genius. Packed it with a hell of a lot of paper, and it popped right out.
I'd buy you a beer if I didn't live a thousand miles away. :pimp:

cut bar soap works well too.

[LINUS]

Bump for a trick that kept me working on a Sunday afternoon.

Official beer count for Matt : 2

Thanks Matt!

[RobertK]

The grease trick only tends to work when you use the nice metal BMW clutch alignment tool. The cheap plastic one that comes with the clutch kit doesn't cut it.

[xLibelle]

oh snapeh
newspaper

[Jaxx_]

All you need to do is fill it with wet newspapaer , pack it in there, and it will eventually pop out

Just wanted to bump this and say it would have worked for me, except the bearing was shot and the back seal of the bearing was completely gone. We ended up forcing news paper through the front of the bearing.

I used about 1.5 pages of news paper. (or 3/4s of a full 2-page spread of a newspaper paper)

Ended up having to rent a bearing puller and a slide hammer. lol and it took a while to get all the damn wet newspaper out to get a good hold on the bearing.

[MattM]

wow, that newspaper trick would have saved me a TON of time.. i acciedently put a 12mm bearing in and had to swap it for the 15mm for the zf tranny(24v swapping).... i ended up modifying a pair of plyers and using the weight of the engine to pull it out.... it worked! i wish i had taken some pictures of the contraption. hard to explain exactly how i did it.

P.S engine was out of car at this point... i cant imagine doing it in the car.