Help! Left side CV drive shaft stuck in tranny!

[almeece]

Hi, this is my first post and I need some help. I am replacing the cv drive shafts on a 94 Camry 4-Cyl. If anybody has tried this beleive me it sucks! I got the driver side (right) shaft switched out with a grat deal of difficulty but it was done correctly. It is the left side, the long shaft with an intermediate shaft supported by a bearing bracket that is giving me trouble. According to the Haynes repair manual, this shaft must be taken out as one piece. That's fine, I removed the bearing support bolt and the intermediate bearing support snap ring as instructed. The next step according to the manual is to grasp the inner cv shaft and "pull" the shaft out of the transmission. What a joke! How could one possibly "pull" a splined shaft with a lock ring out of a transmission?? You have to be able to pry it out. But the genius engineering of the camry made the shaft flush with tranny case. There is no way to pry this left inner shaft out. You would damage the seal and there really is no way to pry it our anyway. Can a slide hammer be used to get this out?? You only have about 8 inches of shaft to work with. Has anyone else had this problem.?

[alxch1n16]

i had my spring release and litteraly push the cv joint out. it can be done, get the help of someone else, and just pull real hard. i think thats the only way. there are special instruments used at cv replacement places, but i dont know what they're called...

[almeece]

Yeah, I had my brother try to pull the intermediate metal part just before the bearing support while I pulled on the shaft. We tried this many times and could not get the inner shaft out of the tran. You can feel it loose in there but the lock ring on the end of the inner shaft is stuck in the groove in the tranny. We pryed off the left (drivers) cv shaft to see if we could punch the left side out through the tranny case hole. There some sort of bar inbetween the two. Seriously stumped.

[d0rkiishchris]

it may be a job for that tool you're talking about. I did the job to my old 90 accord without any hitches, but my buddy's crx had a side that wouldn't come out. He actually tried to sell it before he had it towed lol.

[almeece]

Do you know what this tool is?

[Tercel GTS]

You can attach a vise grip to the 8" section you have to work with, then drive against the vise grip with a long bar and hammer. Good luck, don't you wish you did these every day?

[almeece]

Ok thanks for the help I will try that. Seeya

[foompla]

use a prybar against the inner joint and pry away. its a pain in the ass!

[Ken4]

It's funny you got the difficult side out so easy (left side - short driveshaft), this is the side with the locking circlip. The right side (long driveshaft) is the easy side to remove, there is no locking circlip and once the center bearing lock bolt and snapring is removed, the long driveshaft just slides out very easy.