Simon it does both!
There is a small drilling in the bearing carrier which allows oil in to the bearing, unfortunately after time this drilling becomes clogged with dust and goodness knows what preventing oil reaching the bearing!
The only cure is to remove the carrier and bearing.
J
I'm assuming the tube is not only to make it easier to get at, but to hold a charge of oil to feed that area? The clutch pedal needs to be depressed to access the threaded hole to drop oil in without the tube, making it difficult to oil. Also it would make it difficult to screw a tube in without risk of dropping it into the housing. I wouldn't mind betting there is already one in there rattling around.
Hi all,
a point to consider that might help with the retention of oil and its dispersal would be to make and insert a felt wick or pad in the tube. Once saturated with oil it would allow a drissle down the tube of longer duration, plus act to keep dust , dirt etc out of the tube.
Stephen
There is definitely a hole but very small (probably about 1/16”. I cleaned a bearing a couple of days ago which, incidentally had a lashed up drip pipe. As I suggested in an earlier post I threaded a small piece of 1/4 pipe. However on this bearing housing the hole was not threaded so I had to drill and run a tap down the hole.
16-10-2019, 07:04 PM (This post was last modified: 16-10-2019, 07:05 PM by Ian McGowan.)
Pete, once you have fitted/ fabricated a suitable funnel my way is: fill the little funnel with preferred oil (in my case EP90) then as invariably the little hole into the ball-race is clogged up, "rod" the funnel, feeling carefully for the little exit hole with a short length of 1.25mm stiff wire. Once you have found the hole and dislodged the crud, the oil in the funnel will fairly quickly drain down into the bearing. Endex.
(16-10-2019, 09:30 AM)Slack Alice Wrote: Please correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't the oil tube just feed to the gearbox nosepiece?
It lubricates the track the release bearing slides on, but not the bearing itself.
So how is the bearing lubricated? Pete feels that his is noisy because it needs oil.
I have run a much noisier one on Alice for some time now - I suspect they go on for ever in that condition.
Trust me, Simon, they do not go on forever unlubricated. Some years ago, in a friends chummy on the way to the VSCC Welsh Weekend, we had the clutch release bearing give up at a set of traffic lights. When we stripped it down, at home, all the balls in the race had disintegrated into rusty dust without a trace of oil. My friend confessed to having never lubricated the bearing within his ownership. I have owned that car now for 11 years and lubricate the release bearing every few hundred miles.
There is an illustartion in the Pitman book showing the tiny cross drilling to the bearing. Perhaps someone can copy. it presumably is taken from some common Austin publication.
Whilst bearing must receive some oil, the handbook recommendation is excessive , at least for the later cars. Ball races require just a trace.
