IMS bearing removal without special tool??

[Jamesp]

So, as I often do, I'm about to speak heresy. You are likely to find some ferrous dust in your oil, it's called wear. If it looks like someone has been running a metal lathe in your engine and you've got chips, that's real trouble. If its a little dust chalk it up to an old engine and soldier on. I use magnets strapped to my oil filter so pull out that fine dust and they do collect some. I would not replace a sealed bearing with an open bearing in an engine with any metal in the oil as metal carried into the bearing with the oil will kill it. That's one reason I chose to go back with a fully sealed greased bearing after my daily driver had an IMSB failure. I had to do a complete rebuild as the intermediate shaft was toast as was the bearing and bearing cover - all sourced through E-bay for about $450. Expect to replace any bearing you put in as a maintenance item. I'll change mine out in another 10k miles or so just to see what it looks like and to see if the modification I made to the intermediate shaft was effective in keeping the grease in the bearing.

Also - good for you on not getting the bearing cover off with the engine not set to TDC. when you get back to it, after the engine is set to TDC, look closely at the IMS bearing cover tabs, there should be a relief machined in for the Porsche tool that you can get a screwdriver in to gently pry, do each tab a little at a time.