Look for dents in the tapered bearing races. If they roll smoothly under preload, reuse them.

Ended up taking the lower to a drive shop because no one had the proper tool local. It was a good thing I did, he had to cut the lower ring out, it would not budge. Then he spent an hour with torches removing the lower prop shaft carrier. He actually broke his puller ok the carrier. After that he cleaned and inspected everything (no metal or parts) and cleaned the threads on the case. Assembled and set rolling preload for me. Just a great guy, I walked in looking for him to just get the old ring off, he did the whole service cheap, on the spot.

After looking at his tool collection, I think I am retired from drive work.....at least the lowers. There is simply no way I would have got that carrier out of there.

The good news was everything inside the case looked same as new, no wear to speak of

Thats good to hear that inside was in good shape. I have had to use a hydraulic ram at times to pull the bearing carrier. When the retainer ring wont move, I drill two holes in it about an inch apart, then hit it with a punch and hammer. It colapses the ring and it unscrews very nicely. You can drill the holes so that you don't touch the threads in the case. I start with a smaller drill then work up till I am close to the threads.. Then, Bang! Very quick way to remove the corroded retainer nut.
Dick

I wondered when you would cave... I built engines all my life. Borrowed all the tools for my own "I can rebuild these" bravo fun. Rebuilt 2 XR's and never lasted more than 10 hours. For some reason, I could never get the hang of it. I still have the used parts that Dick Tryce sent back after my rebuilds 2 years ago... Not only that but drives just seem illogical to me - wouldnt compute for some reason. I DEFINITELY know how to break them though...

However, I still look on craigslist for XR and "diesel" drives and buy them if they are decent prices. LOL you can thrash and rebuild a lot of "used" drives for a new or rebuilt "$7000" drive. The back corner of my shop looks like a Bravo used parts warehouse and my local drive guy has a whole "Keith" inventory section. LOL