Axle Shaft Removal Advice

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73duster47

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I'm going to be pulling my axle shafts out in the near future to do a disc conversion on my car, and remember that pulling the axles out of my old 7&1/4 rear was a pain in the butt using the slide hammer.
The axles I'm pulling are in an 8&3/4 housing, and have about 100 miles on the bearings, so I really don't want to damage anything.
Am I stuck using the slide hammer to pull the axle shafts or is there an air tool or something I can use to help me out? I put a bit of grease on the bearing race when I installed the shafts and they went in pretty tight. Any tips you guys have on getting these out undamaged would be helpful.
Thanks!
 
I'm fighting this now. The drivers side came out with a few hits of a rubber mallet. The passenger side is rusty down in the bearing race. That thing is in there. I'm almost disgusted with the "never had one stuck before". On 7 1/4 rears, that end plate has no seal at all. So it's inevitable that you will get rust down in the end of the tube/ bearing area. Unreal. I guess I'm about to sawzall the left tube off and throw this 7 1/4 into the lake.
 
I'm still not sure what keeps the axle bearing from backing out and wearing on that plate. The plate is what keeps it from coming all the way out.
 
Bolt a wheel or wheel/tire on it. Makes a great "handle" for pulling. This has never not worked for me, but they normally come right out with no effort.

When you put this thing back together, put a light coating of grease on the parts first.
 
My goodness. A slide hammer and a prybar preloading every hit. It finally came out. I guess everybody but me in my life has been lucky to buy cars with antisieze on the bearing. I had to give it all I had on that slide hammer. Finally the last blow it moved a 1/4". It came out. The bearing was pure crust. No way was that thing coming out without force. I 320 then 600 grit cleaned it up. Antisieze on the new bearing and it went in with just 2 taps of a rubber mallet. What a pain. Second seperate axle that I've had to beat into submission.

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Nah, the car is an incredibly rust free Duster. The drivers side was perfect. But then again, there is no seal from the 4 bolt plate around the axle. The foam gasket only keeps weather out around the plate.
 
I had an 8 3/4 like that. Bought the whole axle assembly. It definitely looked a little rough, but I got it pretty cheap. One axle slid out ok, it took more convincing than normal but the slide hammer took care of it. The other was impossible. I bent the flange with the slide hammer, the whole deal. Heat, soaking in oil, more slide hammer, nothing worked. I finally cut the backing plate and hit the back of the axle flange with a 12 lb sledge hammer. Figured the axle was already toast, why not. The axle finally came out, but only because the bearing broke into pieces. Maybe that end was buried in the dirt or something, it was totally fused together.
 
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