Plastic pilot bearing?? Are you kidding me??

[IDIoit]

Just spent a pretty penny on a south bend clutch assembly for my ZF5 swap.
To my dismay, it has a cheap ass plastic pilot bushing.
Does this seem wrong to you guys?
I was expecting a nice roller bearing

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[icanfixall]

I may be incorrect but I think thats a kevlar pilot bushing. Someone like towcat who really knows about this might chime in. I'm far from knowing much about standard clutch sets. 4x4 also is not my are of any knowledge too.

 

[laserjock]

I thought the kevlar pilot was the good one....

Somebody will chime in, but I think it's okay.

 

[Dave Barbieri]

That 'plastic' is actually Kevlar. It's supposed to be very effective as a pilot bearing material. I installed one with my new clutch. Didn't notice anything better or worse. It does the job.

 

[IDIoit]

I guess I'm just old school.
For the price of this damn clutch I half expected it to be made from a titanium and gold alloy

 

[HS108]

Id take that new technology pilot bearing over that old school one anyday, Ive had way too many of those old school bearings fail on me in vehicles over the years.

just there to hold the shaft in place as it spins

 

[IDIoit]

thanks guys, you savd a south bend counter girls ear, and my ego..lol

 

[icanfixall]

Its all good. You had a legitimate question and its been answered nicely. The forum at work...

 

[IDIoit]

this place has always been helpfull.
without Oilburners.net, id be gussing on this entire build.
one of the many reasons i hav a orange tag under my name

 

[The Warden]

I had heard that the Kevlar pilot bushing was the way to go, so I decided to buy it when I did my T-19 to ZF5 conversion in 2005. After getting the T-19 off my engine and removing the original flywheel and seeing what condition the pilot bearing was in, I was very thankful I decided to go the Kevlar route, and wouldn't even consider doing anything else at this point! I've put a solid 50K miles on the truck since the conversion, and have had no problems...

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[towcat]

tim-
thanks for the pics. good visuals are often better than words.
i've been installing the kevlar pilot bushings in 6.9/7.3 clutch jobs since 1994. The job stays away from the shop for a long time after completion. That's good enough for me

 

[dunk]

Yeah kevlar is supposedly the bees knees. I've used bronze bushings and needle rollers. Bronze usually shows wear when changing clutches. needle bearings even when slathered with grease all in the bearing and on the input shaft are typically dry and rusty when pulled. It inevitably dries up or washes out. Sure they're great when new but I think I'd rather have a bushing be it bronze or kevlar. Really it just locates the shaft as most time is spent with both sides at the same RPM... Which is why they can be falling apart and not cause too much trouble in most cases.