[speeder]

Meant to include a couple of photos:






You can actually see in the last photo above how the u-joint is "spalled" into the joint. I can get the old one out by drilling it and destroying it but have no idea how to install new one and keep it in?

The carrier bearing is a common repair that is simple if you know what you're doing but there are some pitfalls for the uninitiated. Like a lot of MB repairs, (or any other make), it's not complicated but there is opportunity to really **** it up if you are flying blind. MB balances their drive shafts, (so does everyone else), but it's a 2-piece assembly and it needs to be marked before disassembly and put together the same way or you have just introduced an imbalance with no way to fix it, if you don't know how it's supposed to be put together.

You just hope that the last guy to do it wasn't some untrained monkey who changed the orientation. The factory doesn't put alignment marks on them, for some reason. They put a bunch of other paint marks that denote the model it's going in, (I think). What you want to see is previous alignment marks from another mechanic if it's been apart before or hope that it's never been apart. It's a splined fitting with a lot of potential matings: