How to remove THK carriages?

[samualt]

I have a couple of 14" THK rails with carriages. But there are too many carriages on each rail (3 instead of 2). I removed one carriage and all the little ball bearings fell out all over the floor. Is there some trick to removing the carriages? Or should I just do it inside a plastic bag to catch all the ball bearings?

The carriages I'm removing I don't really need, but I hate to tear anything up.

[Cold Fusion]

Turn the whole assembly upside down so you have a good view of the balls and apply a heavy grease to the inside of the block as you gently slide it off the rail. The balls should stay in postion then.

[InventIt]

Plastic bag works for me. I have used a piece of plastic just the right size to "take the place of the rail" so to speak. slide the carrage off the rail and onto the plastic "rail" to keep everything in place. Tape it together and put-er into your plastice bag for safe keeping.