does the driveshaft need to be centered/can you put a carrier bearing on backwards?

[ryan roopnarine]

It is doubtful that many of you remember my transmission fitting exactly 5/16 too short from the guibo. i pushed the engine up (with the engine mounts loosened) with a transmission jack for a couple of hours, and found that the new distance between the driveshaft and the transmission is about 5/32. this question is in relation to this information....


a quick eyeball of my driveshaft, however, finds that there is a much bigger gap between the shaft and the tunnel on the passenger side than the driver's side. I don't remember ever measuring the gap under there when doing the guibo. I would figure that any deflection in the shaft would show up as uneven seating on the flange of the transmission, but that doesn't look like it is the case. I only discovered this at about 7pm tonight, so i didn't have the time/daylight to investigate. is it possible for my car to have a driveshaft that doesn't sit centered in the transmission hump? also, is it possible that I put the carrier bearing on backwards, or are they an "any orientation" item? i think i might undertake the PITA tomorrow of disassembling the two shaft halves and installing the back only, to check if it is even possible to sit evenly in there. thanks in advance for taking the time to read this.

[MBXB]

http://www.bimmernut.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37336&highlight=preload+driveshaft

[ryan roopnarine]

well, that's good to know. i'm just curious as to how the driveshaft could be so far over to one side. also, was unsure as to whether the gentleman in the post you pointed me to was referring to the carrier bearing (the rubber suspended bearing that holds the driveshaft up) or the centering sleeve on the driveshaft. probably the rubber, but I sure didn't see any directional markings on the carrier bearing.

[ryan roopnarine]

huh. curious thing about the bentley manual, in one of the pictures, they have the same driveshaft gap that I do (way over to one side of the tunnel) but then they give the advice that one can do a quick alignment check by measuring the distance in the driveshaft tunnel. i'm nowhere near the car, but i guess i'll have to start by checking the gap at the differential vs. the picture they have in the book. the shaft doesn't look like it is equidistant at the differental.