Quill shaft bearing

[Clifford Pope]

It never rains but it pours! <br>
Having just fixed the gearbox, and in the process of replacing the duff
engine mountings, now suddenly something at the back starts emitting a
loud screeching rasping noise.<br>
Examination shows it to be the axle extension housing ball race, holding the quill shaft just behind the prop shaft flange.<br>
I remember doing the oil seal once, and found it not too difficult to
get the housing free from the sub frames, but this time it seemed much
more difficult. I must have been trying to release the wrong bits. Can
anyone offer the best way of doing this?<br>
The problem is the design of the subframes, with flanges at the end
that stop the extension housing just being lowered straight down.
Instead one&nbsp;&nbsp; (or both?) subframes has to be unbolted, and
then jiggled sideways with a lot of leverage in order to try to get the
diff casing to lift free of the other subframe. A nightmare.<br>
Then on refitting I couldn\'t get the rear mounts to line up on their
projecting bolts. The entire subframe assembly with diff housing seemed
to have moved backwards about an inch. In the end I resorted to a
scissor jack between the tow bar bracket and the back of the diff
housing, to force the whole assembly forwards again.<br>
<br>
The extension bearing itself was easy, despite my Autobooks referring
to the wrong circlip and trying to make me hit the shaft through the
wrong way.<br>
Silly question - why does this bearing have no means of lubrication? It
would have been so easy to omit the oil seal on the end of the axle
casing, and instead fit it by the prop shaft pinion. The bearing has
its initial charge of grease, no proper barrier to exclude road dirt,
and so presumably fails again after a short while.<br>

[Clifford Pope]

Update.<br>
Ball race replaced, all now quiet.<br>
Experimenting with a spare housing, I discovered that it is nearly, but
not quite, possible to do the job without any dismantling at all By
taking off the drive flange, extracting the circlip, then refitting the
flange, it is possible to lever the shaft with bearing out, but only
about 1/8\" before the thicker end of the quill shaft reaches the end of
the wider section of tube. Frustrating!<br>
Is there any kind of tool that will grip a slippery ball race and pull it out?<br>