Hi has anyone changed out the carrier bearing. I am in the process of changing out all of the ujoints. I have the back section done and let the front bolts to the transmission shaft soaking all night with penetrating fluid. With my truck mileage I want to change anything that might rear it's ugly head this summer in WY back country. thanks for any input, this looks pretty straight forward gonna call around this morning for the part.

 

I did my entire drive line last year. Did it all myself, except for pulling that center support bearing. My 200# impact wouldn't break it, and even if it had, sometimes you need a puller for the bearing, and sometimes you don't. So I took just that part to a local driveline shop and they pulled it and installed my new one in about 10 minutes. I think it cost me less than $20. Well worth the work it saved me. The worst part of the job was driving to the shop in front wheel drive only.

Many guys here have done it themselves however. A good search will turn up some good threads on the subject. Try your search using carrier bearing and center support bearing. It goes by both names.

Looks like this. You can see why I changed mine. The bearing itself was fine. The rubber mount, wasn't.

 

thanks Bill I think I will follow your lead and take it to the driveline shop for this. I got all the ujoints done and greased the slip yoke, great test drive with no clunk on the start stop. My carrier was smooth and the rubber boot was in good shape so I will keep an eye on it. I had a hell of a time getting the slip yoke shaft off and decided to peel the blue plastic stuff off, I hope that wasn't a bad thing to do. I used the special Ford grease and gave the splines a real good coat after cleaning all the plastic residue. If you or anyone out there knows what the blue stuff was I would like to be enlightened.

 

I'm not sure what the blue material is, but it's purpose is a permanent lubricant. Obviously it doesn't live up to that premise. Removing it was fine, because now you will be using grease. Which you may have to repeat every few years. Mine is starting to feel like it needs it again.

 

Thanks Bill, I figured that the blue was some sort of anti friction coating, I buggered it up some driving the shaft off with a brass bar so I didn't think I had a choice but to remove it. If anyone has the same trouble I used a torch to heat it, scrape off the big stuff, wire wheel to complete the cleaning.