Going to do a Clutch in my 89 XR7..any advise on the Pilot Bearing!

steelman

Registered User
Hi All, First off Happy Holidays!!

Well its time for the Cougar to get a new clutch due to a Slave cylinder failure. I plan on changing the Pressure Plate,rear main seal, Clutch disc, Throw bearing, and of course the Slave cylinder. Now I have went over most of the posts hear regarding the change, For the most part it all seems pretty strait forward time consuming for sure, but strait forward. Now the only thing I am not 100% sure on is the Pilot bearing.I have read the tips and advise on this but its still not all that clear. I guess once i have the tranny down I will see what everyone is talking about, but I would like to see a pic or two of this. Any advise anyone has I would love to hear it!. I am a pretty good wrench but I have never done a clutch on these cars, My 5.0 L Mustang was easy but I don't think the SC/XR-7 are as strait forward.

Many thanks and I will be doing a well documented DIY with pics for the next guy!
 
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hey, good luck on the clutch job. Everything is pretty straight forward, you'll need a clutch alignment tool to center everything, which may come with the new clutch. It came with my spec 2 clutch.

As far as the pilot bearing, I used a slidehammer to pull it out. I ended up breaking the inner part of the bearing with the slidehammer which allowed me to use a puller tool on the slidehammer which is pretty much an inverted 2-jaw puller on what was left of the bearing and was able to pull it out with no problems. If you buy yourself a new pilot bearing you should be able to see what I'm talking about. Without breaking the inner part of the bearing, I was unable to get the puller tool on the bearing because the center was too small of a diameter.

Hope this makes sense, I could see how it would be hard to follow if you havent gotten to that point yet..:)

Chris
 
Best bet is to either rent a tool, or borrow one that is designed specifically for removing such bearings.
They look something like this( I bought one like this from harbor freight):
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I've used both tools listed above with excellent results and i've done it without either one. Trust me when I say your gonna want one of those tools.....
 
Thanks for the reply guys, I got the car on jackstands started to PB blast the exhaust, its not coming off and I dont have a torch or an impact gun, I am just going to take it somewhere, my back is too far gone to screwing with this dam exhaust for 3 hours and it didnt budge!
 
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