Early sliding door middle bearing removal

[Beemsquar]

Hi guys, I'm in the process of stripping down my sliding door mechanism for a full bearing overhaul and clean up, but I can't for the life of me work out how to remove the bearing circled in the image attached.
It looks like there is a nylon plug on one side, but I'm reluctant to just start pulling it out, in case I'm missing something.

Has anybody on here done this before and if so could you please advise me on the process to remove it properly.

Thanks in advance

Andy

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[Beemsquar]

OK, I manged to work this out once I cleaned all the crud off of the mechanism.

For anyone who might need to do the same and can't work it out. I'll post some pics and a description below.

First remove the u shaped bracket from the aluminium casing from the side with the bearing you want to replace, to do this remove the 10mm nut that is holding on a lock catch. (photo 1)
With this removed you will now have space to drive the metal dowel that holds the bearing in place into the hole you have just opened up.

Next remove the plastic bung that fills the hole on the front side.
Then take a small pin punch that fits a small recessed hole on the opposite side from where you removed the bung.(photo 2)

Gently tap it with a hammer until the metal dowel inside starts to work towards the cap and into the void, be careful here as when the dowel is out enough the bearing and two small metal spacers will fall out. I would recommend keeping the bearing facing up, so that it and the spacers fall into its crevis. (Photo 3 and 4)

Now simply clean out the crud, renew the bearing, grease those little spacers and refit the dowel by tapping it back the other way until it can't go any further.

Refit the u bracket and Viola you are done.

I decided to renew nylon block too while mechanism was off for good measure.

I hope some one finds this useful.


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[Aidan]

thanks for sharing - this post should get wikied

I don't have an early van and likely never will so have never worked on these parts so couldn't help if anyone asked the question which is why it is so important for people to post and share and not rely on the 'usual suspects' to do all the work for them; I very rarely have anything to contribute to threads about diesels because I have never had one, nor ever will