I am dissembling a 51 chev pickup transmission to take parts to a guy in Europe. I pushed the main shaft out from the rear and removed the U-joint support from the rear to remove the speedo worm gear, but I just don't remember how I removed the rear main shaft bearing on a 48-54 SM318. I really don't need to remove the bearing, but It baffles me that I can't get it out. Seems to me I made some kind of stupid tool 50 years ago.
I can still take T85 amd T89 Warners apart in the dark, but I never messed with 318s that much. If a BW tore up with my driving, I figured I couldn't even back a SM318 out the drive way.
There's got to be a trick to it. But all the guys around here that I would have asked years ago have passed on.