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Doing carrier bearing install right now...have questions

CP

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Aug 30, 2004
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West Simsbury, CT
I've started with the replacement of the carrier bearings and u-joints.



The OLD rear carrier bearing has the hole in it plugged. The front one does not, nor do the two new ones.






Am I supposed to block those holes with silicone, or leave them open?

I took all the c-clips off with little resistance. Now I need to mark the shaft before I pull it apart, and then attack those u-joints. I bought a gear puller so I hopefully won't need a press for anything. Stay tuned, as I'm sure I'll have a few more questions before the afternoon is over.
 
Last edited:

Terry Posten

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Davenport, Iowa USA
You do not have to modify any aspect of the new bearings. Install them just as they are.
 

fastasleep

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Jan 14, 2005
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Im glad youre doing this. Ill be following this thread very closely as Ill be attempting this in a little while. Take lots of pics if you can! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 

the driveshaft rebuilt vfaq walked me through mine pretty good. lots pics there.
 

G

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zompton
looks like someone tried the silicone fix on one. you will be fine with the new ones, don't add silicone.
 

speedyvr4

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miami, fl
make sure you mark the drive shaft and put it back together exactly the same as you took it out.You don't want to put your driveshaft back together unbalanced.
 

I've got a Driveshaft Shop lightened DS going in soon. It elminates one of the carrier bearings, as it's only two piece.

I haven't opened it yet (long story), so I'm curious as to whether it comes with a carrier bearing or not.

Also, it seems that you have to keep the rear section of the existing DS aft of the rear carrier bearing, correct?

Anyone?

twkd
 

CP

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Well, I'm finished. The car drives a little better, but not as well as I had hoped. Now I'm thinking that my 4-bolt rear diff needs some help with shims and whatnot. I'm still getting some wub-wubs upon deceleration, but the shaking when speeding up is almost gone now. I followed the vfaq for the driveshaft rebuild.

I had ordered a bunch of new fastening hardware that I think was unnecessary, including the 4 bolts to attach the DS to the rear diff, the 6 bolts for the lobro joint, the two big nuts and washers, and a new seal for the t-case (had mine done at the dealer a year ago and that existing seal was still fine). The old hardware was fine, but my car was also a California princess up until last year, so I didn't even have any trouble getting the 12 c-clips off the u-joints.

I got three of the u-joint/yoke recall kits, since this was cheaper than buying the new u-joints themselves (I was replacing the part that holds the U's together). For pressing the parts in and out of the u-joints, the method described in the vfaq worked great. Use a 17mm socket and a hammer for banging the caps out and back in, as well as a socket between the ground and the u-joint.

The toughest part was getting the "big Conan nuts" off and back on. I tried a vice with wood blocks on each side, but the driveshaft piece would always get cocked when I'd apply pressure while trying to loosen the nut. So I came up with this:




I bought a 3 foot piece of lumber, and attached the driveshaft piece to it using thick wood screws. Then I lay the board against that concrete lip you see in the picture. I then used a jack handle for more leverage against the ratchet. Two people would have made this easier, as one could hold the board while the other loosens the nut. But as I was by myself, I was using our Jetta's bumper as a brace for the board, so that one side of it wouldn't rotate as I applied pressure to the jack handle trying to loosen the nut.

I did use the gear puller I bought at NAPA, but only for getting the inner carrier bearings off the shaft. The socket method works just fine for the u-joint caps. I used a utility knife to cut off the outer carrier bearings. I got some good Redline grease, and gear lube for the t-case. I dropped the exhaust, and had the car up on 4 stands (took this opportunity to rotate the tires).

This job really isn't all that difficult if you've got all the correct tools and replacement parts. This would mean the correct socket sizes, circlip pliers, and a gear puller. With the c-clips, I was squeezing to get one side out of the groove and then wedging a small flathead in to keep it out of the hole. Then I'd grab this exposed end with a set of pliers and yank the entire clip out. The u-joint kits came with 8 new clips of varying thickness, so don't worry about trashing the old ones. If they're rusty, you'll ruin them trying to get them out anyway.

Regarding the markings and driveshaft balance issues: I don't think this is very necessary. If you take a look at each individual piece of the driveshaft, you'll notice that EACH PIECE is balanced with a flat square piece of metal, about .75" x .75". I actually didn't put the middle piece back together with the marks, and the car drives fine, at least up to 80mph as far as I can tell. No more shaking than usual. So don't stress if you put something back together and it's off a bit. But might as well mark everything for peace of mind, as it takes all of 3 minutes to do with some whiteout.

I think that's about it. Once again, JNZ Tuning was great about getting me the parts I needed when I needed them.
 
Last edited:

CP

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Oh, and yes, that one bearing had been filled with silicone by a previous owner. Maybe that's why I was having the problems that I was...who knows.
 

4orced4door

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Jul 19, 2002
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I did the silicone fix back in the day. It doesn't cause any problems, it's just an easy way of reusing the old bearing. It was worn out and the driveshaft was thumping the crap out of the floorboard... felt like someone was in the back punching the back of my seat whenever I accelerated. My brother did the silicone fix on his 1G several years ago, '99 or '00, and has had no issues with it. If you are having problems it's probably from the rear end.
 

Where are you getting the shims from? I'll be doing mine in the next few seeks or so.
 

CP

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Shims for the carrier bearings? Just re-use the ones that are already on there...the rubber and metal mounts that the studs from the car pass through to bolt the CB's to the car essentially.
 

we have a VERY noisy decel with our gvr4. we've thought it was teh rear end for ages, but after we had new carrier bearings installed by lse performance the noise was even worse! we took it back to them and they inspected the rear end and found nothing wrong. they then looked at the front end and rotated the front wheels and heard a very audible clunk after turning the wheel an 1/8 of a turn. apparently our transmission was the problem and the new carrier bearings are only helping transfering the noise to the rear of the car where it is amplified. I didnt hear the explanation of what was making the noise in the transmission but apparently it isn't expected to last much longer.....shep tranny anyone?
 

Hi, fellas I hope you guys don't mind, but can I just clear this up a little, as I see people have some difficlulties understanding why the car does the thumbing sound on accel and decel, and why they used the silicone to fill up the bearings. I have a 95gsx and I pretty much had the same problem with the thumbing sound. I thought that the previous owner messed up the driveshaft, cuz the car was dissasambled when I bought it. I didn't really look at the driveshaft, but what this fool did to take it appart, was that he couldn't remove the bolts to disasamble the driveshaft so he tried to remove the pins from the joints that hold the stub shafts in place. he damaged them and when I put the shaft on the car the car was driving normaly till the joints wore out wich only took about 5 minutes to mees them up I actually didn't know it till I looked at it closely and saw that the joints where messed up, Cause what this does it causes an imbalancement in the shaft making it jump up and down while rotating and at about 10-15mph you can start hearing it very badly depends how messed up it is. It is very helpful to fill out those holes, but not with silicone use polyurethane instead, this whill help your shaft to not bounce around, but make sure you take care of those joints first and inspect everything on the driveshaft and mountings.
 

4orced4door

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Well that was kind of painful to read, but what you talked about isn't why people normally fill the bearings with silicone. It's because they are worn out, and aren't providing protection from movement anymore, and when you accelerate hard, the driveshaft starts flailing around because it's not held in place right. I would think that using polyurethane in those bearings would be a BAD idea as it wouldn't allow for slight movement like silicone does.
 

what are you talking about?? you need to have the driveshaft mounted very stiff if you have more and more horses and you redline the car often and most important when you do hardcore launches. you don't need the driveshaft to be capable to flex, but one thing that i am sorry about forggeting to mention is that if you fill'em up with polyurethane, then you also must, must must and let me say it again must change to polyurethane motormounts and also get polyurethane mounts for the rear end as it is supposed to be very stiff when you do the modification to the driveshaft carriers.
 

Do you know how god awful harsh the car would be with poly drive shaft mounts? It would also cause a ton of leaks in the t case, transmission, and rear end. The drive shaft has soft mounts so it doesn't vibrate the drive line to death.
 

CP

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Quote:
Regarding the markings and driveshaft balance issues: I don't think this is very necessary. If you take a look at each individual piece of the driveshaft, you'll notice that EACH PIECE is balanced with a flat square piece of metal, about .75" x .75". I actually didn't put the middle piece back together with the marks, and the car drives fine, at least up to 80mph as far as I can tell. No more shaking than usual. So don't stress if you put something back together and it's off a bit. But might as well mark everything for peace of mind, as it takes all of 3 minutes to do with some whiteout.



I'm retracting this statement. It wasn't right when I put everything back together. One of my marks was off by about 3/4", and it vibrated pretty badly. So I had to pull the drivesahft off the car again, separate the lobro joint, crack that big nut, and reposition one of the shafts in relation to the other. That fixed the vibration.
 

Having my drivline redone & ballanced totaly eliminated my accell vibration but I stil get some on decell, I'm atributing this to my bagged out motor mounts gacking the driveline angle.
The ballance on your driveshaft is very important & is done assembled!! Not to mention knowing the shaft is done right will save you headaches tracking down what vibrations remain.
While I understand totaly that budget is an issue for most of us (myself included) but the money saved in the long run by doing it right the first time will be worth it.
Remember, you can have the shaft ballanced even if you do the joints & brg's, just drop it off when your done.
 

CP

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It's not your motor mounts. I've got the wubs with two different 4-bolt rear diffs and some poly motor mounts.
 
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