And I found it. Ever hear that you should not fix something that ain't broken? Well that is very good advice, as I am finding out the hard way.

My first mistake was thinking I should replace a perfectly good driveshaft centre bearing and the second was thinking I could do it myself. Reading the faq made it seem like it wouldn't be that hard, and I had no concept of just how tight an interference fit the bearing is on the driveshaft.

The third mistake was taking it to a machine shop which is a sister company to the one where I work (as an engineer), and having them use their press to remove the old bearing and press the new one on. These guys are mechanics so I thought they'd know exactly what they were doing. Wrong.

At this point I should mention that the assembly described in teh faq does not resemble what is on my car. Mine has the bearing and support sandwiched between 2 protector rings. The faq only seems to describe one protector ring ("rear") and also makes it seem like you can somehow inject grease into the sealed (and sandwiched) bearing to quieten it. Sorry, but that is totally wrong, and is impossible to do.

Anyway, at the shop we applied the force to the front protector ring and moved it about 1 mm, thus virtually locking the bearing. At this point, I was committed because even if I had given up, the driveshaft was useless because it would not turn on the bearing. That was the third mistake.

Next, they thought it would be a good idea to press against the rubber carrier, and this ripped it clean off, as you would expect. To complicate things, an upper management type guy came around and was asking questions. The sweat began to flow from the sides of my head.

Then I packed up my things and left the shop, to think about what a big mistake I had made for the rest of the day in my office. And thought about what I would do to fix it. So I stopped on the way home at the hardware store and picked up a puller and some brass punches.

At home tonight, I tried slicing the rubber away, per the faq, and trying to use the puller to pull away the steel part of the carrier. No dice.

I ended up carefully slicing the steel part of the carrier off with a Dremel and cutting disk. Eventually, that did work and the actual sealed bearing was finally exposed, still sandwiched between the two protectors. Frustration building, clock ticking, temperature getting colder.

Next, to get the bearing off I decided to put some sockets (like for a socket wrench) into the splined part to act as something for the screw part of the puller to bottom out against while pulling the bearing off. This was mistake number 4, and the second worst one after mistake number 1 (deciding to do this in the first place).

Very shortly after starting to work the puller, a "pop" occurred and then the sockets were inside the driveshaft. What happened was that there is a cap inside the driveshaft, at the bottom of the splines, which popped free and ended up inside the driveshaft. I'm guessing it is there to contain the grease used on the splines. The sockets came out, but now that cap thing is loose inside the shaft and I can't get it out. THIS IS WHERE I NEED HELP - sorry, I don't know how to do italic font in this message board.

That cap will rattle around in there forever now. I suspect that if I could get it out, that it won't hinder the operation of the driveshaft, since there would be no real net change in the balance of the shaft. The problem now is that it is stuck inside there. How can I get it out?

Later, I got the bearing pulled off by placing a piece of flat bar on the end of the driveshaft, and the screw of the puller pushed against this and it worked.

At this point, I need to slide the one protector ring that is still on the driveshaft back to where it was before (bottomed out against a small shoulder machined into the driveshaft). And the new bearing and carrier has to go back on, and then the other protector ring.

Guys I really need help here. Should I bail out and try to find another driveshaft at the wrecker's? I really don't want to do that.

I can add some photos of this mess tomorrow if that would help.

What a big mistake.