Oh yeah, if you're just trying to get it out of the steering knuckle, just give it a few good cracks with a hammer on the side of the knuckle where the tapered part of the TRE goes. It should pop right out. You don't need anything more than a BFH for that!
I was thinking you meant getting the threads loose. My bad.

 

Thanks for the help guys, I'm off to hardware store to get a BFH. I was using 24oz hammer that I guess just won't cut it. And I was hitting the stud of the TRE, not the knuckle, so that might have been the issue too.

 

Yeah, it's much more effective to hit the outside of the knuckle. It should come out with a few solid hit. I've never had one I had to hit more than 5 or 6 times to break it loose.
I apologize for the misunderstanding. I should have read that more carefully.

 

It took one strike from a 48oz sledgehammer to pop it off. Thanks for that tip guys.

But now there is another problem. The new TRE is longer than the old one, so it wouldn't go in as far as I needed it to. To now I have to play around with the drag link length. But at least it's safe now.

 

Just did mine last month.
First getting it off, I bought a tie rod removal tool. It's the right tool. Was cheap and I'm glad I have it - also makes a nice tuning fork. I did bruise myself when it finally let go, so not necessarily "painless".
As for alignment, so far as I could tell that just attaches the steering arm to the front of the knuckle. It's the one at the back of the knuckle that attaches to the other wheel that *has* to be responsible for alignment (move things around once you have it off and you'll see what I mean).
The only real challenge was getting the steering wheel back to centre — took a bunch of loosening and tightening and driving and repeating to get that back to right. Leave yourself lots of thread space (make sure you're well balanced between the right hand and left hand threading adjustment tube).

Oh! And keep a constant eye on the idea that it's reverse threaded - I buggered up and overtightened when I thought I was loosening. Thought I'd wrecked things for a while — some worth avoiding panic.

 

Yeah it took me a while to realize that it's a reverse thread. I'm getting the wheel pretty close to the center now, do I guess I just need to play with it a little more.