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IMS thought
I know a bit about bearings and seals from my job dealing with large enclosed gear drives and related equipment. A lot of time is devoted to keeping ball, roller, spherical etc. bearings and seals alive in hostile environments. This got me thinking about the IMS issue.
Has anybody thought about using a sealed one side ball bearing or just picking the seal out of a still good in-place bearing and installing a small grease tube in the cover which could be extended out of the bell housing with a grease fitting? I understand that you would have to drill & tap the IMS cover and maybe relieve the bell housing so you could get the tube between the block and transmission and there might not be enough room to do this. (I have only seen pics, not had one apart) but a few pumps of grease at every oil change and that bearing will never fail.
I say this because many gear drives that normally use pressure or splash lubrication use dry wells on the bearings in some applications. This is usually when leaking oil would contaminate a product so the bearings have to be greased. If the IMS bearing was open on the cover side, grease would just fill the cavity and force into the bearing. If something like a lithium grease was used, you wouldn’t have to worry about engine contamination because that will dissolve in the engine oil just like engine assembly grease.
Just thought I would throw it out there…
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