[fintstone]

Originally Posted by Rawknees'Turbo

The pilot bearing is the small one mounted in/on the flywheel and simply stabilizes the tip (just the! ) of the gearbox input shaft (not much force there, ever); H&T probably meant the clutch release bearing which does carry quite a bit of force whenever the clutch pedal is depressed/held down.

Yes...my thought as well. My old '65 Mustang was hard on the clutch bearing and pressure plate...and I had to replace both a couple of times. The tranny was so tiny that I could drive the front end up on ramps and slide under and unbolt it and easily just use my arms to take it out and replace it (no jack)...bench press style. I never had a tranny bearing go out in 260K miles, but did have to replace the brass sychro blocking rings so I didn't have to double clutch. I would pull out the tranny/clutch and troubleshoot...then put it back and drive it for weeks until the parts came in as I only had the one car (and no money).