Hey guys. So my front diff is due for a rebuild and since my truck is also my daily, i wanted to find a way to be able to drive the truck without the front diff and, by extension, the CV's and front driveshaft. I did some research and decided that I needed to keep the outboard sections of the CV's installed to keep the wheel bearings sealed and held together. So i decided to disassemble my Autozone CV's and keep just the wheel sections. I watched some videos on how to disassemble CV's and most of them showed that the shafts are connected to the inner race on the wheel side with an internal C-clip. There was no C-clip on the axle. One video said to completely remove the inboard section, fit a tube over the axle shaft and bang the whole assembly on something hard to cause the weight of the shaft to basically slide hammer itself out. I tried that and no luck. I then tried putting the shaft in a vice and hammering the piss out of the inner race with a punch. That didn't work either. Finally my friend got a sledge hammer and beat the crap out of the wheel end until the bearing cage gave up its ghost and just shattered. All thr balls came out and I was able to install just that part on the truck. But the seal on the CV that mates up to the seal on the wheel bearings was destroyed, which partially defeats the purpose of the whole project altogether.
Needless to say, i'm positive there has to be a better way to remove the shaft from the CV inner race on the wheel end. Any ideas? I noticed the shaft could actually wiggle within the inner race a little bit, so it's for sure not a press fit. Any idea as to how it's even held on? I couldn't see a c-clip or anything other than splines for that matter. I'll post pics when i get a chance.
Needless to say, i'm positive there has to be a better way to remove the shaft from the CV inner race on the wheel end. Any ideas? I noticed the shaft could actually wiggle within the inner race a little bit, so it's for sure not a press fit. Any idea as to how it's even held on? I couldn't see a c-clip or anything other than splines for that matter. I'll post pics when i get a chance.
