[Silver Surfer]

Do the roller bearing pilot's wear out faster than their old skool bronze counter parts?

[LATECH]

That depends on the life they lead. A roller would not do as well in an off road situation where you are running through deep mud and water.the graphite inpregnated bronze would do better there.A roller is almost a must on street performance as a lot of new design transmissions are built to close tolerances and the bearings maintain that well.The rollers are "Kinder" the the bearing area of the input shaft as well ,which can result in longer, better performance and less wear on the shaft at the bearing contact point.

[Silver Surfer]

Ah good points. This is just a weekend street rod truck, no strip, no race, no offroad use. Old gen 1 SBC350 with a (freshly rebuilt) old B/W super T10. So none of that new high tolerance fancy stuff your talking about! Lol thx for input, sounds a roller is the way to go.

[LATECH]

Yeah for the street if the pilot shaft portion of the trans input is pretty decent I would run the bearing style. The bronze is pretty forgiving if there is a wear issue in this area. If there is no visible wear on the pilot part of the shaft run the roller.If it is worn run the bronze.

[AutoGear]

Remember that you get what you pay for with roller bearings. We sell a genuine 'oilite' bronze bushing which is non magnetic (even though it has a small amount of iron in it. Most parts store bushings have so much ferrous metal that they will stick to a magnet. These are no good and can weld themselves to the input or the bore. With respect to the needle bearings; good bearings are expensive, even at my cost, regardless of type.

We see more problems related to roller pilot bearings than almost anything else (number 1 being improper lube in the trans).

If you can install the bearing squarely in the crank and to the proper depth, go for it. But; most guys, laying on their back and using a socket, have trouble with this. This is why we spec a quality bronze bushing. If you don't get it installed perfectly, its okay, the bushing can take up some misalignment.

When people use cheap scattershields that dont fit properly and then use a roller pilot....things get ugly fast

[cobalt327]

For the application- "a weekend street rod truck, no strip, no race, no offroad use. Old gen 1 SBC350 with a (freshly rebuilt) old B/W super T10", I'd use a quality bronze oilite-type bushing. They've served well for many, many years, they're the epitome of efficient simplicity, they're capable of 100K miles- plus durability, and I'd not hesitate to use them in any application that originally used a bushing and not a rolling element bearing of some sort.

In applications that call for a roller, of course I would say to use one.

Post on bushings/bearings- HERE.

[Silver Surfer]

Wow. That thread was very enlightening. It seems the roller bearing was a fix for a problem that never existed...I dunno maybe the new LS engines need 'em. But my B/W ST-10 was never designed for a roller...so bronze it is. Thanks for posting Cobalt!

[techron]

as mentioned above, go with the "NON MAGNETIC" bronze bushing. the bushings that are magnetic have too much iron in them and will wear the nose of the input shaft.

forget the needle bearing pilot bearings, clutch dust kills them and when the needles/rollers go they will take out the nose of the input shaft.
a NON MAGETIC bronze bushing is the ONLY way to go.

i have replaced thousands of clutches and trust me, the bronze pilot bushings are the only way to go...

[302 Z28]

Non magnetic bronze bushing and forget about it.

Vince

[OLNOLAN]

As I mentioned in the thread that Mark referenced, the bronze bushing makes better sense. My friend who owns a transmission shop says that while the roller bearing maintains precision pilot shaft alignment, its only good until it breaks. When the roller bearing fails, they always seize, which always ruins the input shaft requiring a transmission repair to replace it. While the bronze bushing may not maintain as precision an alignment, it does the job nearly as good and is sacrificial thus saving the input shaft from damage. He replaces all rollers with bronze when doing clutch jobs(and alot of bad input shafts in the process).olnolan