Noooby,
The spider was manufactured new in 1988, completely overhauled in 1999, about 2200 hours TSOH. Originally a -5, modified in 2000 to -6. Bearing that failed was 2 years and almost 1100 hours old. Being a driver, I can’t be bothered to check how many SBs apply to this p/n but the log card indicates 3 having been complied with since overhaul.
I’m intrigued about “checking the bearing on preflight”; how would you go about doing this? The bearing is enclosed within the spider so you can’t see it, and the roughness in the bearing would have to be awful to feel it when rotating the tail rotor by hand. Of course I check for play in the complete assembly and blistered paint (from overheating bearing) but none of these were present. Any other hints?