I went through this with mine when I changed them. One has "difficult" the other was a royal pain.

Its amazing how much force it takes to get the suckers off. I had to replace BOTH of my front cv axles because of the problems getting the damn things out of the front chunk. Neither was damaged till I "removed" them from the car. I had to do this since I had to press the cv axles out of the wheel hubs and the only way to get them to the press was to remove the cv axles from the front diff. Again I destroyed both axles getting them out.

I found a large heavy duty pry bar coming from under the car and knocking the crap out of it worked best.

I bought a tool for removing them but it was to small to go around the axle.

My mechanic returned today with a tool he fabricated to fit in the end of his Slide Hammer (see pic). He had previously drilled holes into the shaft to accept the tool.

Sadly this also failed. We are running out of ideas now.

Any other thoughts?

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...6d21379dfc.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...68ada12826.jpg


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Try spraying some WD40 and let it soak.....Something has to give LOL

I mean it really shouldn't be that difficult. Really strange....

I'm guessing that at this stage it's too late to change plan and leave the inner tri-union joint outer section in place and simply replace the other axle parts without pulling that section from the diff.?

BTW, here's a tool that might help - an inner CV joint puller...

http://www.sulco.co.nz/320J7509.jpg

I think you are past being able to pound or push it out.

Read this thread:
New CV Axle won't go all the way in, and now I can't get it out!
https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?sha...4&share_type=t

I think you are in the same boat and will have to do what he did. I think the snap ring has gotten jammed somewhere and is past the point of being able to remove it without pulling out the differential.

I had the same problem in reverse. The snap ring was malformed and made it impossible to install, Fortunately I figured it out and swapped the old ring and it assembled fine.

I think it's possible to get the old CV out and rescue the dif but I think you need to remove the dif to do so.

Andrew


Sadly, I think you are correct and we are past knocking it out with a slide hammer. My fear is that we may damage the diff by keeping smashing away at it. That would be a disaster.


So how to get it out without doing any further damage?


How big a task is dropping the diff? The shaft is now too damaged to split and leave in situ due to our efforts to remove it.


So it either has to come out by force or, by dropping the diff.


Is there any specific BMW (or other make) of tool that can be used here?


Thank you for your help. It really is appreciated.


Bruce

Unfortunately taking off the diff is a pain in the ass in itself.

Have you tried to attach a slide hammer to vise grips and go at it?

The process is described in the linked thread above. Hard or not hard that's the only option. Odds very good dif is ok.

My mechanic is making up a “stronger” tool to go on the the end of his slide hammer. If this fails we may look at going into the diff from the other side, pushing a bar through and whacking that.

Is this possible to do?

Can we see the end of the bad shaft if we drop the other shaft out and try to get a bar in there?

Many thanks

Bruce