How much clearance should the input shaft have,? it moves just a small amount. the input shaft bearing looks good and when you reinstall the retainer without the gasket it preloads the bearing enough to remove all play.

Thanks in advance!

 

You should still run it with the gasket. No preload is not good in this transmission's sake. The input bearing can handle it but the one that will suffer is the torrington thrust bearing between the input/output shafts. A little movement in the input shaft is fine.

 

Thanks for your time !! much appreciated!