Prop shaft bearing - Would you change it?
 

I took this picture of my '72 350SL's prop shaft bearing.

I had the car in a transmission shop and provided them the parts for fle disks, prop shaft support & bearing and Diff support.

They did everything except the prop shaft bearing , saying it did not need replacement.

Another experienced MB mechanic, who has only seen teh picture tells me the support is torn and should have been replaced.

Any comments?

http://home.cogeco.ca/~mbz/Midshaft bearing.jpg

Gettin' any vibration or shudder under heavy acceleration or engine braking?

If so..........

Personally, I'd have done it because he was under there already and had the thing apart. Wasted opportunity, IMHO.

There is a bit of vibration when accelerating hard and that is partly why I bought the parts. But it's more what you would expect from engine mounts, but they and the tranny mount are all new.

On my 300D, there was a constant drone through the car when the mid bearing went. And it only happened at highway speeds. Don't get that with this car - It runs smoothly on highway.

They probably could do the flex joints without pulling the shaft. They were getting paid for whatever they did, so I don't know why they didn't just do it.
But I must say, I can't see anything wrong when I compare the picture of the old support with the new one below:

Graham, best to have an experienced MB tech work on your vintage MB automobile. I lack the knowledge and experience to tell from the picture whether or not the bearing should have been replaced, but since you supplied a new one it would have made sense for the transmission shop tech to install it.