Paperwork

While I was working in China, I was very fortunate to work with a guy who was easily one of the top three (possibly top one?) smartest people I've ever met.  "Smart" might not be doing him justice, "clever" might say it better.  He was a man who could walk into any room in the world, encounter any sort of mechanical or technical problem, and diagnose and correct it efficiently, without assistance.  This was my experience with him, anyway.  I wish I could have picked up more technical knowledge from him in the time we worked together, but one thing I'll always remember was his talent for dealing with people.

Perhaps, however, I shouldn't remember it, as he actually seemed to rub a lot of people the wrong way.  I could never understand why that was, though, myself.  He is blunt, and does not shy away from confrontation.  If your idea is bullshit, he will say, "That's bullshit."  But, he will throw his arm around your shoulders, smile, and say, "That's bullshit," in a tone that implies, "Look, I know you're smarter than that, now let's get serious and figure this out together."  Still, I guess a lot of people just hear, "That's bullshit."

Watching him spar with the head of the Chinese engine engineering group was daily entertainment for me.  I liked each of them personally, though they drove each other nuts, and often on purpose, from the looks of it.  We had a brief meeting every morning to discuss the status of ongoing activities and determine priorities for the day.  At one of these meetings, the Chinese engineer brought up a recently discovered emergency with high priority.  My colleague said he was aware of it, and outlined the plan for addressing it.

The Chinese engineer started to emphasize how important it was that all the proper paperwork and documentation be completed to document all the necessary changes for the fix.  My colleague waved his hand dismissively and said, "Look ... when you take me to dinner and the food is very spicy ...."  He laid a hand on his stomach and grimaced, implying an intestinal issue.  The Chinese engineer looked confused.

"I get back to the hotel...," my colleague continued.  "...and the first thing I do is fix the problem...."  Here he performed one of the most professional pantomimed bowel movements to which I have ever been witness.  "...And then I do the paperwork," he finished, unrolling toilet paper from an invisible roll in the air next to him.  The Chinese engineer smiled and nodded his understanding.  Honestly, I think he still wasn't happy about the deferment of the paperwork, but simply had to concede the point in recognition of the performance.

A valuable lesson for us all.  And yet, sometimes the paperwork turns out to be essential to the fix itself.  The following is a story about one of those times.

Because I'm using a manual transmission, I needed to get a pilot bearing.  The pilot bearing is pressed into the end of the engine crankshaft, and it supports the front end of the input shaft to the transmission.  I mentioned in an earlier post my irrational and unnecessary penchant for rollers and roller bearings, so when it came time to select a pilot bearing, naturally I decided on a roller bearing.  And that's when the trouble started.

When you assemble the clutch onto the flywheel, there is a plastic alignment tool which is supposed to help you to center the friction disc in the clutch.  Unfortunately, there is quite a bit of play in that tool, and it is by no means foolproof.  You still have to be very careful to try to make sure the friction disc is centered.

The first time I put it all together, I thought I had it all centered up, and put the transmission in place.  The trans didn't want to slide all the way in, it was a tight fit.  I decided to use the mounting bolts to draw it up.  I was careful to draw them all down evenly, and slowly, and carefully.  I didn't think I was applying much torque.  Eventually there was a kind of a "pop," and from there I was able to draw it up relatively easily.  I thought the "pop" was the friction disc popping to center between the flywheel and the pressure plate.

I had to take the engine and trans off of the frame a couple times, and reassemble the clutch each time I put them back on.  Each time there was this pop, which I thought was the friction disc popping to center.  Finally, I thought I was putting it all together for the last time.  I put the alignment tool in place, torqued up the clutch assembly, and then removed the alignment tool.  Stuck to the end of the alignment tool with a little grease was a little piece of metal.  I recognized it as a broken piece of a needle roller.  Dammit.

I came to realize that what had been happening was that the front edge of the transmission input shaft had been hanging up on the edges of the needle rollers because it wasn't centered, and as I tried to draw the transmission up with the mounting bolts, it would eventually apply enough force to break the rollers out the backside of the bearing cage and body.

I discovered all this around the same time when I decided I'd better determine my optimal pushrod length, so at least I wasn't only waiting on the pilot bearing.  But the broken roller bearing would have to come out.  I wasn't looking forward to this, because I'd read the procedure for removing a pilot bearing, and I remembered thinking, "I hope I never have to do that, because it sounds like it wouldn't work."

The typical procedure is to pack the cavity behind the pilot bearing with grease, and then insert a bolt or other round object which fits the inner diameter of the pilot bearing very tightly and hit that object with a hammer.  The force will try to compress the grease, which won't compress, and which will therefore drive the pilot bearing out from the backside.  The main thing I was skeptical about was whether or not I'd ever find a round object that would fit the bearing's inner diameter tightly enough to not just push all the grease out between the bearing and the round object.

I started looking around on YouTube, to see how people were doing this.  I found that not everyone uses grease.  In fact, my favorite video was one that used bread.  I didn't have any bread in the house, though, so I fell back on my second favorite method, which was toilet paper.  You get the paper wet, pack it into the cavity in the crankshaft, and then drive it in with a hammer, just like you would the grease.  I ended up using the plastic alignment tool, because it was made to fit the bearing tightly.  I used a plastic deadblow hammer, so as not to destroy the alignment tool.  Once I had this method worked out, it was really kind of amazing how easily the bearing came out.

But wait ... as with every stupid, stumbling step of this project ... there's more.  I drove a new bearing in, using a hammer and socket.  I remounted the clutch and transmission (being very careful to align it just right this time, of course).  I got that all back together, and then I thought, "Hmm ... seems like I had read somewhere that you're supposed to put a little grease on that roller bearing.  I think I did that the first time.  I didn't do it this time.  I wonder if that's going to have to all come apart again."  I started looking on the internet to see if I could find whatever directions I'd found the first time.

Instead, all I could find were things saying not to do pretty much everything I'd done.  Don't use a roller bearing unless the original equipment used a roller bearing.  If you do use a roller bearing, don't drive it in with a socket and hammer.  If you do use a roller bearing, pack it with a lot of grease before you install it.  Dammit.

So, back to the toilet paper trick, and another roller bearing was removed.  I would now need to find a pilot bushing, instead.  The same guys who said all the things to not do with a roller bearing also all favored a specific bronze bushing.  They said it was NAPA part number BK 6151161.  This was supposed to be an all-bronze, "heavy duty" bushing.  However, NAPA doesn't seem to offer that part number anymore.  So, I tried searching the part number through O'Reilly's website.  It didn't come up, so I dropped the "BK" and just searched the number.  That returned O'Reilly's number PB656HD, which looked and sounded like the right thing.  I was placing an order to Summit anyway, and I found they had a part with the same UPC code, which was 724956022137, so I ordered that.  I think it will be fine.

Summit allows customers to post reviews of their products.  One reviewer of this bushing commented something like, "Just don't beat it in with a hammer like some shadetree hick, and it'll work great."  Unfortunately, I just don't know any other way to beat it in with a hammer, so I went ahead and did it anyway.  I think it will be fine.

One case where the paperwork had to be done before the fix was complete.