BMW E46 Drive Shaft Center Support or Guibo Replacement

In this article I will show you how to remove the drive shaft and replace the center support or the guibo on your 2001-2005 BMW 325xi or 330xi.  When the center support fails a common symptom is driveline vibration at highway speeds and when the guibo (flex disk) fails you might notice additional harshness and clunking when changing gears.  To do this job you will need a new center support, flex disk, flex disk locking nuts, exhaust nuts and exhaust gaskets.

1.  Start out by removing all of the underpanels.

2.  Remove the exhaust system.

3.  Remove chassis bracing and the heat shield.

4.  Unbolt the 3 bolts that hold the drive shaft flex disk to the transmission output shaft.

5.  Unbolt the drive shaft from the rear differential.

6.  Unbolt the center support, drop the middle of the drive shaft down and slide it out of the transmission output flange.

7.  The drive shaft is marked with two white dots from the factory but sometimes the dots are not perfectly aligned.  I recommend marking the two halves of the drive shaft your-self.

8.  Loosen the drive shaft clamping sleeve and separate the two halves of the drive shaft.

9.  Remove the center support circlip.

10.  Use a razor blade cut the outer part of the center support out and use a gear puller to pull the bearing off the drive shaft.

11.  Here is how you can install a new center support on to the drive shaft: Unbolt the drive shaft clamping nut, take the plastic part out of the clamping nut, partially bolt the nut back onto the drive shaft and hammer on the new center support with the second half of the drive shaft.

12.  Reinstall the circlip and assemble the two halves of the drive shaft making sure the two halves are properly aligned.

13.  Reinstall everything in reverse order.  Make sure you use the new locking nuts for the flex disk as I have seen them come loose when they are reused.