Read all the stickies, searched all posts related to the front driveshaft rebuild. I rebuilt other driveshafts, one on the side of I95 when my 67 dodge van u joint exploded. Removal of the u-joints was pretty straight forward, however, removing the centering ball has caused much grief. Followed the various instructions, used a reverse claw slide hammer. The ball popped out but left the race. Doesn't seem to be enough lip to grab it. Any suggestions? May take to a machine shop to see what they can do.

2002 disco, 105k miles. I think these were the original u joints, did not appear to be greased any time recently.

 

Tried heat?

 

Thought about heat, problem is I have no way to grab behind the race unless I make some very thin "claws". The race did come out about 1/8 of and inch.

 

I just rebuilt mine. I know what your talking about.


Luckily, mine came out with the race on it using a slide hammer, but if I was in that jam I would consider trying to Dremel a cut or two in the race to allow it to break apart and come out. I would try a tungsten carbide ball cutter like this one….


https://www.dremel.com/en-us/Accesso....aspx?pid=9905

 

I can't quite remember what we did when we rebuilt mine at a campsite in Telluride one night... I do remember that we had a hell of a time getting those needles to stay in place and we didn't have any grease, so we just put some neosporine in there. Seemed to hold all the way to Moab, and through Hells Revenge the next day. Until I received my replacement Tom Woods at the motel the next day.
The only tools we had were a hammer and some sockets.

 

So your centering ball didn't have any problem with infection after the application of Neosporin?

 

I gave up and brought mine to a machine shop. They had the custom clamps needed to pull out and properly install the new one. $20 for 30 mins of work.

I know it sucks not being able to do it yourself, but you need to make some custom tools to do it without fighting it every step.

 

The outer 'race' to the centering bearing can be a pig to remove. I ground halfway through the internal face with a Dremel Résultats Google Recherche d'images correspondant à http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-85wTxMddxzc/T9VShEQhFPI/AAAAAAAAAj4/ICRY6akY61A/s640/dremel7700.gif and a diamond burr first. I then modified a long 12mm 8.8 cap head bolt and put a step on it and using a sleeve longer than the race and slightly larger diameter put the race under tension then applied heat to the outer housing whilst increasing the tension by screwing down the nut on the bolt. The race outer slowly slid out - to my delight. The use of the pullers and slide hammer had failed miserably earlier. When you press in the new bearing ensure you press it completely home before you insert the grease seal. I would advise measuring the depth of the old race outer first before you remove it and ensure the new one goes in the the same depth. I used a digital vernier for this but you could also use a depth micrometer.

Résultats Google Recherche d'images correspondant à http://www.machinemart.co.uk/images/library/product/huge/04/040218046.jpg

Résultats Google Recherche d'images correspondant à http://www.technologystudent.com/images3/micrm11.gif

used a similar rig to this but smaller and I used a circular sleeve instead of the gantry.


This guys idea is excellent for pulling the V8 D2 liners as well.

 

Hate to admit it, but in order to save time and frustration, I ordered a propshaft from toddco. Just glad I checked the condition of the propshaft before it totally exploded.

 

I used a long thin pry bar and wedged it in there, came right out.