CV Shaft to Transmission Problems

[clintbaum]

So I just joined this forum and am hoping to get some really good info. I am a member of a mustang forum so I have a pretty good idea how they work. As my title says I have a major problem with my CV shaft coming out of the tranny, because it won't come out! I bought the car about 2 months ago and the owner said the CV joints were bad and I thought that was no big deal since it felt like the shafts were bad. Today I took it to a shop to have work done and they cannot get the shaft out, they are afraid they will break the tranny case it they push it to hard. It appears that whoever put the shaft in was an idiot and hammered it in, which puts me in a jam. So now the car is going into a tranny shop and I was just wondering if anybody knew what might be the damage? Or how much this will cost me?

[Zef_66]

There is a snap ring that holds the axles into the transmission. Usually a quick jab will pop them out. There is no real way to "hammer" them into the transmission. It is probably just the case that the snap ring is tight. Just takes some special finesse to get them out. I personally use pry bar that looks like to pop them out. Simply pushing or pulling on these will not get them out. Need to be a hard, quick force to push the snap ring enough to pop them out.

[clintbaum]

The guy that was working on it said that he tried everything to get it out. Not sure if he tried the crobar but he said he could not get it out and had never seen anything like it. Is there anything that could be hurt in the transmission that is holding on to these shafts and not letting them go.

[TheOtherNick]

Pull the inner joint apart, and use a vise grip on a slid hammer to yank it out.

[clintbaum]

Thanks for the help guys! Has this ever happened to you guys? Cause my repair guy acted like it was really rare. I really don't wanna damage my transmission getting this thing out, so is there really anything that could be holding on to it inside the transmission and not letting go besides the snap ring?

[Zef_66]

Thanks for the help guys! Has this ever happened to you guys? Cause my repair guy acted like it was really rare. I really don't wanna damage my transmission getting this thing out, so is there really anything that could be holding on to it inside the transmission and not letting go besides the snap ring?

I've had some that were hard to get out. But once you realize that it's a snap ring and just a constant pulling force is never going to get the shaft out and that you need to use a pry bar with a quick but hard force to pop the snap ring, you will get it.

It could be seized fast if it was sitting in water and rusted. But that is highly unlikely.

[clintbaum]

Thanks for all the good advice guys! I can already tell that this is going to be a very good forum with a lot of people who KNOW things.

[Pepino]

Both of mine came out no problem, but putting the passenger side in needed a BFH to persuade it.

X2 on that pry bar... exactly what I used.

The seals are what pissed me off.....

[stealthee]

My brother has a Neon that this happened to once. I have pulled hundreds of CV shafts and none acted like this one did. The normal pry bar method failed miserably. We bent the hell out of the bar.

Next we tried come alongs, and that failed.

Next we made our own puller with the cable from the come alongs and a 4 foot pipe. The two of us tag teamed the damn thing and almost yanked the car off the jack stands and the axle still refused to pop.

Finally we were able to use a flat chisel and a hammer and beat the ever living sh!t out of the end until it finally broke free.

I can normally have an axle popped in 30 seconds tops, this one took over 2 hours with the combined effort of my brother and me. Point is, keep trying.