Replaced my IMS bearing this week
 

I figured I'd put the lingering fear in the back of my mind to rest and had the LN IMS bearing installed on my 43,000 mile 2000S. It's the dual-row. I kept the old bearing. It's still in perfectly good condition. Contrary to what you'd believe if you hang out and read these boards often, it looks like not all factory IMS bearings are bad by 40k.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y37...r/HPIM1827.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y37...r/HPIM1828.jpg

Where did you have it done here in CO at?
And of course, how much were you charged?

BC.

I'm in the north of the state, Poudre Sports Car in Ft Collins is an LN dealer and did the job. They did other stuff at the same time, but is seems like the going rate is about $1700-$2000 with parts and labor from what I've found.

What else did you have done? The clutch and RMS?

You won't know if its perfect or not until you cut it apart and inspect the races and rollers. When it's cut open you can also see how much of the permanent lubricant remains inside the bearing.

Did any oil pour out of the IMS tube when the bearing was pulled???

I get more calls from people with failed 40K mile engines than anyone else, it seems that 36-50K is the sweet spot if you are going to have bad luck.

If you are willing to send me the bearing I'll cut it open for you and post the results.. etch your name into it, or some other ID so there is no doubt that what I post comes from it.

I want to cut into as many as possible.

$1700-$2000 is what' I've found from a couple of places here in Colorado to just have them do the IMS bearing. That includes fresh oil and filter. Clutch and RMS will be more in parts but not labor (10 hrs).

boy isn't there a CAT scan for cars? They need to invent one of those.
Too bad your health insurance would charge you the price of the LN Eng. bearing instal.

Already done my man, you need a lead pig, a cesium source, 135 0r 137 and a receptor. Anyhow it's how they X-ray airplane wings for cracks. Radiation source is carried in a lead pig with a long cable, huge sheets of film are placed on the wing, the end of the lead pig line is positioned in such a way that it will pass radiation through the wing to the film receptor. The lead pig has a crank, when you turn it a radioactive pellet comes out of the lead protectant and travels down the cable into position. The wing is now being irradiated, time is dependant on distance and thickness, a tech comes back, and winds the pellet back into the pig, develops the films and viola, there's your image of a metal component. I'm sure today the method may include using no film, replaced with TFT (thin film transistor) DR plates, lead pig I'll bet is the same.

We actually have a vibration tester on loan to the local Porsche dealership to try to see if a bad bearing is something that can be quantified. So far, the results aren't too useful. Too much noise from that area. There is a value in the in-car diagnostics for engine vibration, but I'm sure it's too general for point of measuring IMS bearing life. We did however notice that when switching from Mobil 1 0w40 to Motul 5w40, overall engine vibration dropped 5%.

When they pulled the bearing support plate, they hadn't drained the oil, so I don't know if they had oil in the IMS tube or not. I'm going to hang on to the bearing for a little while, but I might end up sending it over to you one of these days.

At the risk of hijacking the thread :D , how much of that vibration reduction is the Motul and how much is the 5w40? I.e. could we expect to see that with any good 5w40, like maybe Castrol Syntec?

I haven't compared this, but I'd guess it was mostly just viscosity based.