Technical Input shaft bearing renewal

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Technical Input shaft bearing renewal

This is a great thread, it should be made sticky.
Thanks a lot Mr. Wild, wherever you are and whatever car you drive these days.
This is the first major work I've done to my Punto 1.2 8V 2006. I did it in 2017 I think. The gearbox seal broke and I was to find out the bearing inside the gearbox was missing about half of the balls. I could not find a mechanic willing to open up the gearbox, I ended up doing it myself with the great help of Mr. Wild here.
Thank you again, Mr. Wild.
 
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I have just done a 100HP six speed box. Everything is as described by Mr Wild BUT the input shaft now has a non-caged roller bearing, carrying the max number of rollers. My bearing with 120,000 is absolutely fine. HOWEVER. The input shaft seal has dried up allowing oil to scrap my not very old clutch. The only way to change this seal means following Mr Wild's advice to open the box. You will need help to realign the reverse gear selector ball joint as you bolt up the carrier. A magnetic stick is also very handy. ;)
 
There is a heavy duty input bearing that’s a cylindrical roller rather than ball bearing.
We sell both and the seal by the bucket load.
Box needs to come out and bell housing taken off.
FWIW the same box is Fiat 500, PUNTO and newer Ford KA
Beware of seemingly bargain prices on eBay. There are a lot of fake bearings around. Manufacturers even have complete departments tracking fakes down.
 
Sealed ball bearings are bad design. They will grind their own ball retainers, cage.
Debris will go down into the differential and kill it slowly (small, weak magnet installed in the diff. will not hold all the dirt), often you can find remains accumulated in the axle seals (but they will not pop out during oil change - so you think your box is "OK", drained oil was clean, no chips).
As years went by, they were replaced successively with open type roller bearings (this is correct type, do not downgrade it to ball ones).
Top shaft (input shaft) is above the oil level and will suffer the most (that's why it fails more often than other parts).

There is interesting phenomenon when you grease (or oil) sealed bearing from outside - the grease will be sucked out from the bearing (that's why you should not try to "repair" sealed bearing by adding lube outside it, externally - you will make it worst in a long run).
Therefore input shaft sealed bearings are often empty when you dismantle the gearbox (they work on a single droplet of oil, literally).
While lower/bottom shaft bearings are 100% filled with oil. Pretty uneven working conditions... Clearly bad design.

PS
C514 series manual, download it while you can:

In a Grande section, there is a Guide on gear-selector seal renewal/swap, check this out (interesting details + video in the Discussion tab).
 
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Anyone in West Sussex done this as might need a hand
Hi - I am in West Sussex and have recently bought a 55 plate Fiat Panda (well my daughter has) - the gearbox needs the bearing replacing so wondered how you got on with it ?

She only bought the car Friday and we have a list of things to fix - having started a mechanics course she is hoping to use the car as a "fixer upper".
 
Hi - I am in West Sussex and have recently bought a 55 plate Fiat Panda (well my daughter has) - the gearbox needs the bearing replacing so wondered how you got on with it ?

She only bought the car Friday and we have a list of things to fix - having started a mechanics course she is hoping to use the car as a "fixer upper".
We sell gearbox internals at work.
Let me know the vin and I’ll see what we have
 
We sell gearbox internals at work.
Let me know the vin and I’ll see what we have
Hi,

Thank you but when buying the car we found the seller had bought the bearing and seal, he just hadn't had time to fit them. They are selling up to move and offered us the car cheap as a practise fixer upper.

Will message you if we find we need something for the gearbox when we get on with the job :)
 
Ziggy, I would get the original bearing type, but certainly talk to the bearing suppliers. They might be able to offer something stronger that can better handle the loads. I've done this with bike wheel bearings and usually been told the OEM I took in as a pattern was actually really cheap & nasty.

Though, Mr Wild said his bearing was pitted and breaking up. Pitting usually means corrosion so could the root cause be condensation? I've not idea if it is but (if one can be found) a corrosion resistant bearing of the same mechanical spec might be a better choice.
So much for sealed for life gearboxes and oils!!!!
 
Hi,

Thank you but when buying the car we found the seller had bought the bearing and seal, he just hadn't had time to fit them. They are selling up to move and offered us the car cheap as a practise fixer upper.

Will message you if we find we need something for the gearbox when we get on with the job :)
You can do this job by only removing the small bolt on gearbox while leaving the part with the clutch on the car. The clutch can be inspected thru the opening in the bell housing. I suppose as a trainee mechanic you want to take the car apart but its a mission to get the struts off the hubs and everything else compared to just taking the box off
 

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Hi Guys, I have done the job as detailed by Mr WIld. I've got the gearbox back on the car, but I cant get all gears. Is this likely to be a cable issue , or something more sinister?

Any obvious (to you) daft things I have missed that would cause issues selecting all gears ?

Thanks
 
Hi Guys, I have done the job as detailed by Mr WIld. I've got the gearbox back on the car, but I cant get all gears. Is this likely to be a cable issue , or something more sinister?

Any obvious (to you) daft things I have missed that would cause issues selecting all gears ?

Thanks
This might be the problem:

 
Well... not fitting the fork in the correct position when you reassembled the gear box could be the daft thing.
And also, did you make sure there are no metal residue inside the box, from the bearing you've replaced?
 
I'm planning this job and from the pictures it looks like a pretty straight forward job. I tried to get some more detailed information on how to put the bearing on and putting the box back together. I could not find anything on youtube or other sites so I hope that some of you can answer them.

How tight is the bearing on the main shaft? I see that some people mention they where able to take it off using a hamer and old screwdriver and some use a bearing puller. But how do you get the new one back on? Do you use a brass punch or put a pipe over the shaft that sits on the inner race? Do you preheat the bearing so it can expand, and if so how hot do you get the bearing?

And I see several solutions on what to use to seal the box, I see people using silicon or a anaerobic sealant. Is the anaerobic really needed? I checked the permatex website and they have a anaerobic gasket maker or flange sealer. the last one is 5 times more expensive. What is from factory between the halves?
 
I'm planning this job and from the pictures it looks like a pretty straight forward job. I tried to get some more detailed information on how to put the bearing on and putting the box back together. I could not find anything on youtube or other sites so I hope that some of you can answer them.

How tight is the bearing on the main shaft? I see that some people mention they where able to take it off using a hamer and old screwdriver and some use a bearing puller. But how do you get the new one back on? Do you use a brass punch or put a pipe over the shaft that sits on the inner race? Do you preheat the bearing so it can expand, and if so how hot do you get the bearing?

And I see several solutions on what to use to seal the box, I see people using silicon or a anaerobic sealant. Is the anaerobic really needed? I checked the permatex website and they have a anaerobic gasket maker or flange sealer. the last one is 5 times more expensive. What is from factory between the halves?
i did this job a few times with a bearing puller. hard to see how it can be hammered off even though I had read this thread. A 6 inch bearing puller is not expensive these days. The original sealer is LOCTITE 573 which is a green coloured anaerobic sealer for close fitting flanges and suitable for aluminium. Permatex do not recommend a silicon sealer for machined close fitting flanges. I used permatex anaerobic gasket maker.
 
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I did the job once (car is still running smooth) using a bearing puller to take the bearing off.
To put the new one on, I used 2 equal (same length) pieces of wood, longer than shaft measured from the bearing when it's in position to the tip of the shaft. I've oiled the bearing and the shaft, placed the bearing on, the 2 pieces of wood on the bearing, with the shaft in the middle and gently taped the woods simultaneously with the side of the hammer. Job done quicker than I was expecting. No pre-heat or such things.
To seal it I used Renzosil by Victor Reinz. Very good product, I'm very satisfied with it and I'm using it ever since that gearbox job, to every sealing I've done, even use it in non-auto jobs.
 
Just finished it with succes on a ford KA. In the end a proper bearing puller was required to remove the old bearing. It had lost half of the balls but it came off in one piece. To put the new one back on I cut the outerrace of the old bearing leaving only the inner. Slightly enlarged in the inner part so it would move freely over the input shaft. Put the new bearing on, the modified old race on top and then a 22mm long tube. To knocks with the hamer and the bearing was installed.

It was quite the fight to get the gearbox back on the bellhousing but with some fiddling it took "only" 1,5 hour.

I used the permatex gasket maker 51813 to seal the halves back together.
I used the described SKF 6204 2RSH bearing and the Corteco 12014345B seal.
 
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