Buitenzorg,
Well done for chasing this up to find the cause of the noise, but I don't think playing with the pedals during rotor rundown is really a good way of finding any bearing problems. How about checking the bearing on the pre-flight, that way you'll know before you fly if it is OK.
Would be good if you could give us some details as to the calendar time since overhaul, and if all the bulletins had been carried out. When I used to overhaul these things, Eurocopter came out with a number of bulletins to try and improve the reliability. Bearing failure wasn't the problem then, the problem was wear on the bearing housing and wear on the spider because there wasn't enough pinch on the bearing to stop it from rotating in the housing. Your pitch change spider should be at least a -5 or -6, and those dash numbers are from 4 years ago!!!
