Propshaft centre bearing

[Spriteracer]

Morning all,

Still chasing the weird vibrations I had after the subframe bushes were replaced. While pulling things apart I also decided to grease the diff drive flange as the torque reversal clank was getting quite bad. That all done easily but while the prop is off I am also planning to replace the guibo (flexi) disk and the prop centre bearing. They are both 14-15years old after all and it is a lot of work to get to them again.

My question is - do you really need a press to put the new centre bearing on ? - NewTis says you do, but it also details a range of pullers and pushers for the diff flange, which as most people seem to have found, are not needed in practice. Anyone done this, and how easy was it ? Many thanks.

 

[PDJ]

I changed my centre prop shaft bearing on my Z4M on the bench with no special tools may have used a 2 leg puller but don’t remember it being too hard a job

If you change the rubber donuts just make sure you put it back the right way.

 

[Spriteracer]

That is good news, many thanks. I had seen the various warnings about orientation on the disk and on the prop centre splines.

 

[Spriteracer]

Evening all,
Just finishing off the work on the prop and came across a couple of things that might assist others doing the same.

1st one is a gotcha ! When the prop is out of the car, mark the alignment of the 2 halves as the first thing you do..... The splines come apart fairly easily and are only covered up by (in my case) a perished rubber boot which split. There was no bolt holding the two halves together as in many of the videos. I was using a slide hammer blind bearing puller to remove the centering bush at the gearbox end and managed to pull the prop apart without noticing. Not good news as you lose the balance. As a recovery I'm told by my indy that the balance weights on the shaft usually line up so the two halves can be put back in more or less the right position. It is also worth ordering the rubber boot along with the centre bearing and Guibo disk. (I'm waiting for mine to arrive.....) fairly cheap and very irritating if yours splits.

The second thing is that the method of removing the centering bush using wet blue paper and a tight fit socket (see YouTube) does actually work where the blind bush puller didn't. NewTis suggests grease which is a lot messier.

Hope that might help someone.