Gear selection problems can be caused by many issues but one that seems to rear its head occasionally is pivot ball failure. For many years now up-rated ones have been available and usually come part of upgrade kits, we always advise fitting these as part of any change upgrade or standard as its not worth the hassle later. So here is a classic pivot ball failure with a little twist in the tail, the ball head breaks away but is often kept in place by the retaining clip, as a result the breakage can go unnoticed for a while however every time the clutch is depress the ball head is mashed in to the remaining pivot shaft until the lever arm slips sideways. In this case the input splines were very dry as was the crankshaft bearing, this had destroyed the spigot bearing and now the whole unit was compromised with the lever arms tilting over when the clutch was depressed and causing the release bearing to meet the cover plate at an angle. All of this had damage from one small pivot ball, luckily in these case the clutch itself had been spared from any damage, due to the fact that the spigot bearing, bearing carrier and pivot ball were all dry suggests poor fitting practise when the clutch was last fitted, beware !!! Jeff TT
I would actually suspect that the failure of the pivot ball was caused by a lack of lubrication of the pivot and the thrust bearing carrier. There is a groove in the carrier for grease to sit. I think the real message here is for people to install their clutches properly. I do have a upgraded pivot in my gearbox though. I like the JUN ones, they are machined extra nice
Don't over lubricate though, one of Jim Berry's favourite subjects. Too much and it will get onto the plate and cause problems like judder. Use a high temp grease too, it is less likely to be flung around, just a light smear is all that is required.
Properly designed there is NO way the pivot ball would fail. I had an interesting drive home one night in the Patrol one night when it failed in Sydney traffic. Is it only the Nissan ones that fail ?
