[Jonathan S]

I wish I could say I accomplished a lot this weekend. With the three day weekend I thought I would get the engine and transaxle installed and be ready to fire up the engine for the first time. I got the engine installed but I got nowhere with the transaxle. On the first attempt I got the clutch and transaxle installed then I went to turn over the motor by hand and it did not turn freely. Not good.

After some investigation I discover the input shaft for the transaxle is bottoming out in the pilot bearing adaptor. I figure I must not have pressed it in far enough. I remove it to check for obstructions. I find a bit of a curl on it so I figure it must have been a little crooked. I clean it up and press it in again. Still not deep enough. So I repeat the process but freeze it first. I succeeded in getting it in further but still not far enough.

Now I cannot press it in further and it would no longer come out using the hydraulic method. Off to the store to buy a pilot bearing puller. Of course it will not work because the arms are not long enough.

In the mean time I call KED and they said they sent the wrong part. The hole should have been bored out bigger than the input shaft the full length so that the input shaft would not bottom out. They said they would mail the replacement today. That still left me with the problem of removing the old one.

Three hours of fabrication later I made a new pilot bearing puller from scrap I had laying around. The only part from the store bought puller I used is the C shaped bridge. After about 10 minutes my home made puller had the adaptor out. I’ll post a photo of my puller later.

This has been the biggest challenge in the build and it was to take something apart.