The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Okie Bushing removal

Been leaking into my rear end with my 49 pickup and a torque tube so I thought I'd put in an Okie bushing. Torn it down today at the U joint and guess what... already has one installed.
Anyone have suggestions on how to go about removal? Don't want to pull apart the pumpkin. Will one of the bushing removal tools sold by vendors do the trick or will it not grip the front bushing in the Okie hard enough to pull out the whole thing. Is it possible to drill holes at the 9&3 o'clock position in the old okie and then use a slide hammer to coax it out? Any thoughts would be helpful.

There are two types of Okie bushings I have seen. One is solid brass and the other is steel with a brass bushing. If you use the puller designed to pull the stock front bushing on the steel Okie with the bushing, you will most likely just pull the bushing out, not the assembly, unless the assembly is not fitting as tight in the housing as it should be. On that subject, I have seen where the Okie is not tight enough in the housing and oil will leak between the Okie and the housing.

I have drilled two holes and threaded them in the front of a bushing and made my own puller bar and bolt to push on the shaft.

Many of the Chevrolet people subscribe to the idea of driving the old bushing down the propeller shaft with the new bushing and just leave it in there.
That's what I did and had no problems with the oil ever leaking out again.
Joe

Driving the old one down the tube with the new one is how it was commonly done 50 years ago. I'm not sure any service manual recommended that, but that was the common sense approach of doing it.

Does anyone have experience with the bushing puller that can be purchased through one of the vendors?

I may be wrong on this but the old way to replace the original bushing was to drive the bushing down with the newer Okie bushing and seal which was usually made by a company called National Products. I don't know whether it would be wise or if it would fit lengthwise to drive a replacement Okie down the tube and replace it with another Okie. My gut feeling is that you should try to remove the installed Okie first and then replace it with a new Okie. When I rebuilt my transmission, I also did the Okie trick. When I got the original seal and bushing out I looked down the tube and there were pieces of old brass crap in there and I used a long needle nose to extract all of the old stuff because I didn't feel comfortable with that stuff grinding away in there. Have you looked at the top of your torque tube to see if the person who put the Okie in there put one or two peened plugs to secure the Okie? If they did, you could drill out the plugs and perhaps the old Okie would come out much easier and you may be able to use the holes where the plugs were with a narrow drift and hammer to drive the old Okie out. I have some pictures of the holes and plugs on the Webshots albums at the link below to help you identify and see the plugs that I am talking about. Good luck!

By the way, the "tool" that the vendors supposedly sell has almost never been available. Don't know if it could pull out an Okie as it was designed to pull out the original bushing.

I agree that 2 okies won't fit. PO drilled out front pludg and didn't replace so I'll try to drift it out. I see sealer around the edges so it may not come out. Probably end up pulling the driveshaft, doesn't look too hard (just time consuming), and drive everything out from the pinion end. I'm thinking of pulling a new seal in the original position along with the okie. That way I'll have 2 seals. I can lube it using the hole I'll drill for the rear dowel. Now I'm hunting a rear U-joint yoke for a 4spd. The one I took out had slightly twisted splines (may have been a 3spd/car yoke) so it wouldn't slide down the shaft all the way. Removal was tough!! Thanks to all for the inputs!!