The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Driveshaft issues. . .

So far, all of my questions on this forum have been hypothetical or pertaining to issues not mission critical if you will, so tonight I had my first true breakdown. The bushing that supports the driveshaft just past the joint wore out, so now the driveshaft is scraping against the iron support. I was able to jerry-rig it using a ton of rope and basically harness the driveshaft so that it wouldnt just flex and saw itself in half long enough to get it to a place to park, but as of now I am stuck. Any suggestions, or stories from the past? Should be an interesting one to fix, but I don't suppose there's a better way to learn these things. . .

Buy a new center support bearing and put it in. Try and buy the entire metal hanger that it goes in if you can because yours is now damaged.
It goes bearing, rubber bushing, metal hanger.
It involves pressing the first two in the second, can be done in a vice if need be.
Consult your shop manual.

I drove 35 miles with no bearing or rubber, it made some noise, but I was taking the truck apart for the engine when I got home. It was a 14,000 empty dump truck, not worth the tow bill, I had nothing to loose by trying.

I was talking about an AD chevy.
I see yours is newer, the details may be different, but the idea is the same.

Luke,

As far as I know, on the 60-66 trucks, that center bearing is only sold as one piece, including the bracket and bushing.

Replacing it's a simple matter of unbolting the old one, and the driveshaft, swapping it, and reversing the process.

Brian

I replaced the center bearing on my 65 C-20 LMC use to have the bearing support I don't know it they still do it's a one piece assembley bushing bearing and frame make sure you order the right diameter bearing they came in diffrent sizes.IIRC I only had to unbolt the rear u-joint (Make sure you wrap some tape to hole the bearing caps on the U-joint)the whole assembly should come apart real easey. L little tapping and some wd-40 to get the bearing off.

Take the shaft off the rear end, pull it apart from the front shaft. Support the front shaft!Unbolt the bearing housing. Should pull or beat off the shaft. Press on the new one. Bolt it back together. Should take less than an hour to do.

One other thing. Be sure to mark the shafts before you dissassemble them and make sure that they go back with the same alignment. A center punch is recommended. If not, you could have a vibration and worse problems than you have now.

Replacing the center bearing shouldnt be a big deal... ensure you pay attention to rfs56trk's advice concerning proper phasing of the shafts..which means that the ujoints are aligned with each other.