Strange (ominous) engine behaviour. Not sure what to make of it

Well, drove 15 miles to work this morning and the heater worked better than it recently has, so I guess I got the coolant round the system ok in the end.

It's a wet day here, but not the slightest whiff of any clouds out of the exhaust when starting and driving off that I could detect, compared with wet day on Friday when it did it loads.

And now was fine on the drive home too. No clouds of anything from the back.

Still unsure about gasket/coolant if I'm honest. Had one day when there was a bit of smoke out the back but nothing today. Not done many miles as I bought a 320D during the week as a more economical daily driver (very nice it is too!).

Anyway, tonight I took the front propshaft off to remove the dodgy UJ. Can't believe the state it's in and the fact it hasn't totally shattered!!!!

It's wobbling all over the shop, and there are big chunks of metal missing from the 'caps'!

Got the circlips out ok and proceeded to press the cap on one side with a socket in the vice until the other side was in the way, so I swapped to using a lump hammer on the socket to push the cap/uj further through.

It's not having it though for some reason. I've given it a fair old beating and it's not going any further through. The outside face of the cap on the opposite side is just a tiny bit protruding from the hole (ie just past flush with the hole edge), and I'm wondering if the state of the UJ means the main body of it has moved as far as it can do, but not enough to get anything out?

Hope some of that makes a bit of sense.

Any suggestions on how to get the swine out? I've two articles on this job but the methods in them aren't cutting it as it's moved so far, then stopped.

Cheers!

Well I've excelled myself now, and have broken the new UJ.

Got the old one out and it was in a total state. One of the caps chunks missing from it, had no needle bearings left inside it (and none found outside), was bone dry and had some nice dents in the surface the bearings sit against. Shocking, and I think I've probably narrowly avoided a big problem thanks to the squeak it started giving and the people who knew what that meant.

Damaged the new one putting it in though. Just ordered a replacement.
Don't know how I could have been so ham fisted as I have never managed to do this wrong in all the years of fitting press in or tight fit parts like wheel bearings, caliper pistons etc.

I'm going to have to smooth out the surface that the cap presses into as well, and I'm a bit worried that it's going to be even harder to get the new one in straight as a result.

Thanks **** we bought a new car last week or I really would be up the creek right now!!!