[Suvorovo]

Doing some prep work for tomorrow to rebuild CV axle. Does this axle nut look fully unstaked? It was a PITA to unstake since it was machine pressed and wasn’t able to get a chisel in. I don’t want to damage the threads of the axle.

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[Brian86]

It doesn't matter. The staking features are beyond the threads. Just slam it off with a big impact gun.

Best of luck pressing the axle out. I've been there many times and sometimes it's a nightmare.

[Suvorovo]

Thanks brian! Found my late father in laws 800lbs impact. Gonna slam this sucker out tomorrow.

Update: Overnight PB blaster + air impact zipped off that axle nut!

An update for everyone that I found extremely helpful when doing this repair:

1. PB Blaster the axle nut, control arm nut, tie rod nut, wishbone nut overnight.
2. Unstake and Remove the axle nut with an impact. Quite a breeze.
3. Start hammering out the axle maybe about .5cm-1cm just to get it going. This made life so much easier since the strut dangles once the control arm/wishbone/tierod are removed.
4. The control arm was difficult to remove due to the care I took to keep the ball joint intact. I used one of these ball joint separators https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/bal...cta-tools-4013 and hammered it into place very so slightly without damaging the ball joint rubber. Buy a 24mm crowfoot adaptor to properly torque down the control arm nut. The CV boot is in the way and there is no way to fit a socket and a torque wrench. If you keep the crowfoot and the torque wrench on the same plane (perpendicular) the torque values don't change and you can safely torque down the nut to the correct spec.
5. The wish bone was removed with a two jaw gear puller. Quite a breeze. No need to smack the knuckle and risk damaging something else. Ball joint is in good condition.
6. Hammering the axle was pretty easy with about 3 medium strength smacks with a chisel on one of the protruding edges of the CV axle. Keep a oil container underneath as some fluid leaks out.
7. DO NOT HAMMER YOUR AXLE into the differential! It's enough to use your hand to smack it into place until an audible click is heard.
8. DO NOT HAMMER YOUR KNUCKLE ASSEMBLY to get the axle into the knuckle. I used 2 inches of wood and a dead blow hammer to lightly tap the axle into place. It will take a lot of taps, but you do not want to transfer the force of the hit to the differential. Once you can get the axle nut in on 2-3 threads, tighten it lightly until the axle is completely pulled into the knuckle. Since an Axle has telescopic features, you don't risk pulling the axle out of the differential.
9. Don't rebuild your axle, just dish out the extra money for a new axle and save time. The axle nut was staked pretty hard from the factory which caused damage to the threads when trying to unstake.