W124 Driveshaft Question

[JamesDean]

Hey everyone,

I'm in the middle of replacing some plastic gears on my 722.418 in my 300D 2.5... In order to gain access to the one plastic drive gear I've gotta take off the tailshaft housing. So I had to remove part of the exhaust. I originally planned on dropping the entire driveshaft, but when the rear flex disc gave us difficulty, I went inside to look up how the flex disc mounts to the shaft/diff..my buddy was trying to pull it off the car and he accidentally removed the front half of the drive shaft...

So my question... I know I've always read that you should mark the drive shaft before taking it apart so you know what orientation it should be in so that it is balanced.. Is this the same case with the 124? How do I go about re-assembling the driveshaft without such a mark?

Also, Should I replace the center carrier bearing/bushings? Take a look at the pics below:

Front Flex Disc:


Tail Shaft Housing, I'm told this is a 30mm 12-point nut. I do need to get a deep well socket ($10 I think) from the parts store here...


Half of Driveshaft..



Questionable looking bushing thing: