So what probably happened is the rubber had come off the inner metal ring except a few patches that held it to the mount. The creaking noise was probably made as these patches were stretching as the shaft moved up down. That's also why I was able to rotate the shaft in the mount a bit. Then when I applied more forced those patches also gave up but interestingly they didn't come off at the metal but inside the rubber.
The fact that the rubber has come off all around so nicely suggests that the rubber to metal bonding was insufficient except where the patches were. What do you think?
