I finally got it. It turns out that all I needed was a little help from the family pry bar, I also had to tap it back into place with a hammer so I could get everything close enough to bolt together.

Hopefully I will not be kicking myself for using those methods. I took the exhaust shield off, since I already had the exhaust out, and it looks like the support bearing and rubber around it were replaced. I am betting the person who did it just tightened everything as much as they could.

And it turns out that the flex disc was not as bad as I thought. But I do not want to take any chances with college starting back up in a few weeks....once that happens I will not have much time to mess with stuff.

__________________
89 W124 300TE - 136,000 miles