Newbie with Carrier Bearing Woes...

[GMC69mnypit]

Hi all, I've been hanging around here for awhile, soaking up some knowledge, but I haven't run across this one yet.

First off, I recently aquired a '69 GMC 1/2ton LWB, rought to say the least, but fun. 350cid w/ th400. My carrier bearing recently went south, picked one up at Autozone, here's where the fun starts. They list two, one of a smaller diameter, and a "horshoe type" 1.378" diameter. I have the 1.378", so I bought theirs, Timken # HB-88107A. It physically looks different, but they list nothing else for that diameter shaft, so I figure it's an "improved design", and I'll make it work. But... dimensions are off as well. Mounted it, and the driveshaft is rought 1 1/4" closer to the bed, which puts the rear 1/2 of the two peice shaft at a sharper angle, and now I have this "shudder" on accel and decel.

Has anyone ran into this? Did you just make a spacer for between the carrier bearing and it's hanger? Do I have an odd ball? I have looked at GMCPauls and other vendors from here on the board, but don't find dimensions listed.

some pics of the original stuff:

This is 1/2 of the original (clamshell? The bearing was surrounded by a rubber donut, which was sandwiched between two of these, held together by three bolts and then mounted to a bracket thats riveted to the crossmember by 4 bolts





The distance to the center of the bearing (approx. 3 1/2" orginally) is 2 1/4" on the new unit.