Am I missing something? (axle removal)

Dana 41 (rear) 55 CJ5

Hubs are stuck (heated with acetylene torch, puller, BFH) so I pulled the backing plate bolts and this sucker will NOT come out.

Put a drum on backwards to "slide hammer", dead-blow hammered the backing plate, pryed...nothing. Is there some sort of retaining bolt in the carrier that I'm stupid and missed or is this sucker just stuck? Any ideas? I'm about to go rent a slide hammer and wail on this thing.

 

Not familair with the 41 rear but what kind of puller are you using? Hopefully the type that used the lug nuts to anchor too and has "wings" that you would hit with a large hammer?

 

BTW a slide hammer will be of no use

 

One like this is what you need.

 

are there clips inside the pumpkin holding the axles in there?

 

Clips? Shouldnt be any clips inside the pumpkin Im aware of unless the 41 is different from the 44

 

im not familiar with it i was just throwing out the idea

 

Ok I got it. I was using the puller mentioned to get the hubs off, with acetylene heat and a BFH and they wouldn't budge...the problem I was having was even after removing the backing plate bolts to take the whole works off at once, the axle was still stuck. I grabbed a slide hammer and threaded it into the puller and whacked the thing hard about 10 times and the axle came right out. Both sides were pretty stuck. Interestingly enough...I have a 19 spline D44 (1955 CJ5)...I didn't know that was possible unless someone swapped it out at some time. Can someone confirm that? I thought the 19 spline axles were after 62. Now I gotta get these down to the machine shop and have them press these hubs off because nothing I'm doing is working.

 

Somebody swapped the axles or the complete diff. If it is in fact a Dana 41 and has 19 spline axles then the side gears and shafts were in fact changed as the 41 had 10 spline shafts and side gears.

One other thing, the 41 wasn't used in the CJ-5 to the best of my knowledge. It was used in CJ-2a's until the switch to the 10 spline 44. Got a pic showing the axle housing?

 

Looks like a 44 to me. Sorry the picture is flipped...for some reason I can't get it to load right.

 

You're correct. When I started tearing into it I was under the assumption it was a 41 / 10 spline...as most stuff I'd read said it would be. At the time I posted, the axles did not want to come out. Then when the 19 spline axles popped out, I looked up the differences in the diff covers and realized that it was a 44. At least...I believe its a 44. I'm just confused on whether its original or replaced at some point.