One of the weak links in the paralever drive train is the final drive pivot bearings. These bearings are composed of four components:

1) Outer race that installs in the final drive housing

2) 20ish needle bearings

3) A plastic ring that holds the needle bearings in place - this is the part that usually fails and is the weak link

4) Inner race that holds 2 & 3 in place

 

None of these parts are individually available from BMW. To get a complete pivot bearing you need to buy part 33172311091 (about $68 USD new from a dealer.)  However, I happened to have saved some of these little parts lying around and had enough on hand to rebuild a couple of final drive pivot bearings.  According to the BMW parts catalog this is a 10X32X17 bearing so with that data you might be able to find a generic replacement.  Rubber Chicken Racing also makes replacement pivot bearings ($140/pair) that are supposedly superior to the OEM ones.

This bearing only had the inner race remaining in the left final drive pivot:

I had a spare good plastic needle bearing retainer ring and some needle bearings on hand so I assembled the following, using Mobil 1 synthetic bearing grease to hold the needle bearings in place:

Then I pressed it (by hand) into the outer bearing race and then inserted an inner bearings race. Voila! The finished product:

© 2013 Drake Smith - Please do not use or reproduce this elsewhere.  Feel free to link to it though.