[Persian Whisperjet]

Very confusing. Pelican Parts shows the aluminum part (part number ends in 629) being superseded by the rubber part (ends in 061). Over at ECS Tuning meanwhile the rubber is described as being for cars built before 10/2010, with the aluminum version recommended for later cars -- or as a "heavy duty upgrade" for older cars.

Interestingly, ECS shows a ship date two months from now -- March 6, 2017. As BB Cuda suggests, maybe the supplies of the aluminum part have dried up for the foreseeable future due to a spike in use and search engines are returning the rubber part since it fits.

[Fundguy1]

Ok. Heres the deal.
The 335is aluminum one has been discontinued by BMW. They are now replacing them with the 335i rubber guibo and no longer carrying the aluminum one. BMW has sold out of their stock of the 335is aluminum guibo. The vendors no longer have bmw as a supplier. Subsequently if a vendor has sold out, they either go back to the rubber one, or as ecs has done, order them directly from the parts supplier in Germany who still has stock. This is a special order taking 10 weeks or so.

The aluminum one would be the one to use at 500hp+.
So get one if you can. The rubber ones wear out and deform with age and high hp.

I just got a 335is aluminum one from a vendor who had one left. I don't know if BMW will order more or the part manufacturer will continue to make more.

[Yozh]

Weird. M550dX also uses the 0061 part now. Except they have two of them on each end of the driveshaft. And the second one is a different size.

[Robimplicit]

"To access all this business you have to take down the exhaust, and remove all central shields. Once accessed, for disassembly, I put the car in neutral, and using an 18mm crow's foot wrench held the transmission side of one of the 6 fasteners and then used an 18mm 1/2" drive socket to turn the other side of the fastener. I spun the transmission side of the assembly around by hand to get to each bolt. I didnt take a photo of this, but Ill try to remember to on friday. Make sure to use a piece of wire or rope to hold the driveshaft up so it doesn't fall on your face. Then, once all of the bolts are loose, yank the driveshaft back towards the differential and it will slide off, and you can lift it up and extract the flex disk."

So, to confirm, there is enough slack in the driveshaft to pry it back to remove/replace flex disk without adjusting or loosening the center bracket? Thanks.

[335dsleeper]

I’ve always had to drop the center bearing to get the shaft off of the tranny flange.

[BB_cuda]

I'm back to this thread but for a different reason. I discussed with Yozh privately already but thought I would share with larger audience. To be open, this is a double post as i asked the same thing over on suspension/chassis forum.

I have a VERY subtle thump thump noise. I can only hear it under the following 2 conditions. Like i say it is a very quiet but distinct noise.
Going 15-18 mph and on a very smooth road.

I hear a small thump thump noise. One day i almost thought i could feel it too. At first, i thought this was merely a tire problem sort of like a rock stuck in the tread.

I had planned to switch out my spare tire on each of the 4 corners but thought it worth thinking what the rotation rate is. For a 25" diameter tire, it is turning 4 Hz at 18 miles per hour. That is way faster of a rate than i'm hearing.

I also don't think it is a wheel bearing as those vary with speed and whine higher and higher as you go faster.

My noise is more like 1 Hz. So, I'm now thinking either guibo or something in the driveshaft area. Yozh also suggests to check trans mounts and diff mounts. The mounts are easy to check on the diff. Those are the 2 piece Powerflex purples and are only 6 months old so I doubt it but who knows since i did all that suspension work last summer.

If you all have any methods for checking guibo, please suggest them. I perhaps need to re read this thread as its been way back when i wrote earlier. thanks