I just pulled the tranny out last weekend & put in new syncros & a new input shaft race. The old pilot bushing was really worn...probably about 80 thousandths of an inch was gone from the bushing, worn away by the tranny input shaft. The input shaft seemed fine...it was slightly discolored but felt fine. I replaced the pilot bushing with a new brass pilot bushing from AZ. I have always used the bushing, never the bearing (I've only had the T-56 for about 20K miles though). I used high temp bearing grease to lube the bushing & input shaft.

Now when I release the clutch, I get a nasty grinding noise, but only on harder/higher revving launches. Once the clutch is engaged, the grinding stops. It doesn't do this on easy launches, or full throttle launches...it probably only happens 10% of the time. Is this likely to be the pilot bushing again, or could this be a problem with the clutch plate or pressure plate? What would cause a pilot bushing to fail after only a couple of days? The input shaft on the tranny didn't seem like it would hurt the bushing. It had been making this noise before I pulled the tranny. The clutch & PP seemed fine, but I didn't inspect them very well. Anyone experience anything like this before?

Thanks!

 

Anyone?

 

Did you check your shaft endplay after replacing the input shaft bearing?
The input shaft bearing race is shimed underneath the race (assume you already knew this). As I understand it, the endplay is fairly critical.

I have mine apart right now and was afraid to replace any bearings for fear of losing shift quality (it's great right now!).

Mine would pop out of 3rd occasionally and I took it apart to replace the shift fork with a steel one. Once I had it apart, I figured I may as well do synchros and seals.
Hope mine works!

 

There was almost no endplay when I put the tranny back in. When I took it out, there was a fairly significant amount of endplay. I thought that was likely the problem...the guy who rebuilt my tranny said it was normal, & that his T-56 had that much or more, & when he replaced all the bearings it didn't help it. When I put it back in, there really was almost no endplay though. We didn't replace any of the tranny bearings, only the input shaft race. We didn't change any of the shims either. We didn't do anything to check the endplay, we just took the old race out & put the new one in. Could that have caused a problem?

 

Here's a site with good info on it:

http://para.noid.org/~lj/T56/T56.htm

They used 0.002" for the endplay dimension (not sure what the spec should be; I'll have to look it up!)

Good luck!

 

I don't know what the endplay was when I put it back in, but it was probably more than 2 thousandths. That is nothing... When I took it out it probably had 70 or 80 thousandths of play. The guy who rebuilt it said that was normal...his T-56 had that much play & the other ones he has done were like that as well.

Anyone else have any ideas? I'd like to know what I'm trying to fix before i tear into it again. I really think it is the pilot bearing but I don't understand how it could be damaged since I just put it in.

Thanks!