The kid has already cracked the bumper cover on the AMG, which sucks. But it is winter up here, and it has all-wheel drive. If he was not having to drive to school, things would be different. That puts me in the position of having to drive something that usually stays inside and covered up all winter.
Of course it should be understood here that having cool cars is not the same as having piles of cash laying around.
Also, I am trying to teach the kids to be self sufficient. This should be something that we can fix, especially since the rest of the gearbox components are in good shape. It has to be cheaper than junking it and buying him a crapmobile off of ebay.

 

You can try the two fellas in my signature for used parts besides Drillbit who's on this forum. Just another suggestion. I can vouch for both Paul and Will. Both of my sons drove my Disco and we all worked on it back in the day. They both have new Dodge Rams now, not sure what happened.....

 

Will, Marty and Paul are all good sources.

I found this on CL as well. They seem to be in your "neighborhood"
https://asheville.craigslist.org/pts...445757392.html

 

Get your kid a toyota camry with the 4cyl and paint it pink or something.

Sounds like he needs to learn this lesson right now, IE "Don't be a turd and expect to have nice cars you can bang up".

Not to be a troll at all.

 

An update on the catastrophe: I just pulled the broken front of the mainshaft out of the input shaft, and feel pretty confident the the issue started when the pilot taper bearing froze up and disintegrated.
So I am moving along with disassembly. The new problem is that I have no means to remove the oil seal collar in order to get the extension housing off. I suppose I can manufacture something on the lathe, but possibly someone here has a better solution. I do have a pretty good assortment of pullers, but nothing that seems to be able to grab it correctly.
Any suggestions?

 

This might help

 

Their solution seems to be purchasing the two rare and probably extremely expensive LR special tools.
I was hoping that there might be another way.

 

 

Wow....I had not looked up those parts before I posted! $350 for those pullers! I guess I'd seek out a LR shop or perhaps even a dealer to see what they have to say.

 

I spent the day making heavy duty devices to pull the collar out. I put enormous forces onto that thing, but only bent my homemade jig. It did not budge. If I could get at the collar, I would just cut it off, but half of it is under the housing. What a horrible design.