D25 Cross Shaft Removal

D25 Cross Shaft Removal
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First the history:

I had the misfortune (ok I messed up) of breaking the drivers side front axle shaft in Mighty Mo. There were no spare D25-10 spline axles available and since there is a Lock-Right in there, I pulled the broken shaft out and wheeled the rest of the weekend in 3 wheel drive. When I got back home I repaired the body damage and then decided it was time to fix the axle. I have broken axles before and thought no big deal. I drained the differential, pulled the passenger side axle, removed the differential bearing caps and expected to be able to pop the carrier right out. WRONG.

I worked on this for off and on for a week and a half. The factory manual says that a housing spreader should be used and not to exceed 0.020" spread. My home made spreader could not get more than 0.010". I had previously used this when I installed the Lock-Right so I was confused. I noticed that the housing spreader was bending. Eventually I built a housing spreader out of 1/2 x 2" steel. The original was 1/4 x 1 1/2" steel. This provided 0.020: spread but even using a 3 foot crowbar, the carrier refused to come out.

I was talking to Bob Stevenot (Stev) and he suggested I might be able to remove the broken piece on the side gear if I remover the cross shaft and used something to drive it out. This proved to be a "forest & trees / alligators / swamp" moment. Thank you Stev.

When I attempted to pull the cross shaft I found the shaft would not slide out past the ring gear. I had read that some people have slightly ground the teeth of the ring gear to remove the cross shaft with out any problems to durability of the ring gear. A few minutes with an air grinder and the pin slid right out. See the pictures below for the entire process. If the ring gear fails, or there are other "issues" I will revise this page with a warning. Since the gear required very minor alteration, I don't expect there to be any problems though.