Bob L

Works great, though the fit needs to be good. If you can get an accurate measurement of the id of the bearing, I could turn one on my lathe - it will cost you a six pack though (standard rate)...

Jim_H

My guess is the dowel and grease method works for some but not all. Mine falls in the "not all" category. Got a couple of good ideas though. Spent almost as much time trying to get the !#@**$#@! bearing out as I have on the whole job.

Jim_H

I will be attempting the nut, bolt, screwdriver technique....tomorrow. Got frustrated and cleaned the garage. This job has been very easy - till now.

worf928

There already IS a simple cheap tool for this. It's a small inner-grip puller. I have one. I don't remember where I ordered it from. When I get home I'll see if I can find some spoor to trace back to the vendor.

Toejam

Bill, sorry I didn't see this earlier.

I rented a bearing puller/slide hammer from AutoZone to get mine out. When I saw the slide hammer that came with it, I thought it was going to be worthless (about a 3ft long slidehammer rod) and that I'd end up just using the bearing puller end by itself.

Well... when all else failed, I took a look at the huge slide hammer, threaded it diagonally through some hole in the lower bell housing you would have never thought to use, and at an angle up to the pilot bearing.... it was pretty amazing really

So the actual slide hammer was outside of the bell housing down under the car, and I had ample room to use it... so in theory, it could have been 10ft long...

Your S4 is probably very different though.

Jim_H

Did the nut trick. Found one just a tad too big (15mm wrench), filed it down some, put it on a bolt, put through bearing, stuck a "small" screwdriver along side, screwed bolt in and bearing was out in no time.
QUESTION- Is there a possibility some pilot bearings are sealed and some aren't? This would explain why some can use the dowel method and some can't. I had a very tight seal with my fabricated dowel and pounded out 1/2 a tube of grease before I gave it up. Took an hour of degreaser and q-tips to get it all clean. Anyway the bolt trick is so easy and clean to me it's the only way to go.

worf928

Below is a picture of the pilot bearing puller. The jaws are reversible and in the below picture are reversed from the position for pulling the pilot bearing.

It is a CTA 8070 Pilot Bearing Puller. I googled it and the first it was:

http://www.ctatools.com/catalogs/pullers.pdf

I do not remember from what company I bought it. It was about $25.