The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline Rear mainshaft bearing removal

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.

There is a snap ring around it that floats in the housing. You need to spread that snap ring & slide the bearing out.

I think its beginning to come back to me. I think I took a piece of flat and bent it kind of the curvature of the bearing and ground kind of a point on it and drove it into the hole. I'm messing with it at the house. If I had taken it to the shop and pressure washed it so I could see what I'm up against, it probably would have helped. But I think I get the picture now. Thanks.

There was a special flat-tipped expanding snap ring plier designed for just that job. It had a parallel-jaw arrangement and spread the tips to about 2 inches wide when fully expanded.
Jerry