Yeah, my descriptions were a little fuzzy, but you zeroed in on my problem quite nicely.

Exactly. I used zip ties to fasten the gaiters. The left hand one is holding up fine, but the right hand one is ½" from my exhaust down pipe and I suspect the tie melted and broke away. I'll replace it with safety wire or perhaps an OEM metal band.

Once I got my son-in-law to help me maneuver the hub while I guided the cage into the pot, everything buttoned up nicely. I'll be taking Rosebud for a test drive in a few minutes. If I look in my mirror and see ball bearings chasing me down the street, I'll know I got something wrong and I'll be back with more questions. Thanks.

pics would help. I can't wrap my brain around the specifics of your post.

I'm assuming pot joint style driveshaft and not a MKI style yoke or hardy spicer.

There are several things that can happen: The Pot or Cup of the pot joint can come off of and out of the differential. There is a spring clip on the male shaft of the differential that the Cup is supposed to clip in to.

Then, there is a spring clip on the end of the driveshaft itself. The driveshaft inserts into the pot joint inner. The rubber gaiter appears to be clamped to the driveshaft, but in fact the small diameter portion of the gaiter is secured to the inner pot joint. If this spring clip came undone, then the robber gaiter would still be attached to the bearing cage.

What likely happened is the large end of the gaiter pulled away from the pot joint cup-- so the gaiter is attached to the driveshaft, the cage is attached to the driveshaft, the Pot or Cup is still attached to the transmission, and the only thing that came apart is the rubber gaiter meaning your zip tie or metal band clamp that holds the gaiter onto the cup came loose/off.

The ballbearings snap back into position on the cage and then the whole thing just pushes in to the greasy pot/cup attached to the transmission. If it won't go in easily, the ball bearings are not pushed into the cage enough. Sometimes you have to gently tap them with the plastic end of a screwdriver to get them to fully seat. angle of insertion is important but it's all pretty straightforward and you can visually see what's going on if you look closely.

Alright, I'll admit I panicked a bit. Happens every time I see ball bearings go bouncing on floor. Got all my questions answered from, ahem, another forum. I'm sure you guys just went to bed early and your usual excellent advise will be waiting for me in the morning. 

[EDIT] I got my edit wrong too. I realize now that the driveshaft is fastened to the cage with a C-clip, so one would expect the cage to simply slide out of the diff. and the driveshaft to remain attached to the cage. And I thought perhaps that the ball bearing falling out of their seats might be a sign of excess wear. Nope. They just fall out.

OK, now I'm in a real fix. Got my ball joints shimmed, lapped and installed [thread]. However, the right hand driveshaft slipped out of place on the transmission side, bringing with it a ball bearing cage. I've managed to collect all of the ball bearings from the garage floor and get them back into the cage, but I'm having a heck of a time refitting the whole thing back into the differential. I've got the rubber gaiter turned inside out so I can see what I'm doing.

I expected to see some sort of spline on the inboard side of the driveshaft. I see nothing but a blunt end extending a bit past the bearing cage. I think Haynes is calling this whole thing an "offset sphere joint" Yes? Among my many questions, let's start with these...

Does the driveshaft need to somehow be indexed to the differential? Without any visible splines, what the heck joins the two together? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Car: Non-S, Type IV w/ disk brakes.

[EDIT] After reading Haynes again, it sounds like yanking the inboard driveshaft out of the diff typically leaves the offset sphere joint in place. If so, why did my sphere joint come out of the diff so easily and of course, how do I get it back into the diff?