Well if the nuts weren’t stripped I wouldn’t have had to cut them off, but I didn’t have a choice. Is that pinion removal difficult?

It's all fixed. New front drive shaft is in, the shuddering on acceleration is totally gone and it's all smooth now. Never knew how badly I needed a new drive shaft till it got critical and I barely dared to accelerate to 30 in 20 seconds. Also fixed was this “clunk” that happened between braking and accelerating at lower speeds. I had assumed it was the transmission, and that went on for a long time, but now it’s gone. I can slam the accelerator down and it glides from 0 to 50 effortlessly. Sure glad I changed the drive shaft.

So I'm going to openly admit, I started cutting bolts off way sooner than I should have and made a mess of things. The drive shaft bolts are 9/16 6 point. I had 14mm and 15mm spanners, open and close ended; 14mm and 15mm 1/2 inch drive sockets, which I used with a huge wrench, and then an impact driver; and a 9/16 socket I tried, but it was actually a 12 point socket and not a 6 point, so it didn't grip the bolts well enough. All those sockets I had and I tried to use, but not the right one, a true 9/16, 6 point socket—I didn't have that one, and I didn't think it would make enough of a difference to bother going and buying it. So instead I rounded off a couple nuts on the back end of the drive shaft, and thought, "Well, I'm screwed now; I'll have to cut them off."

I cut one nut off with an angle grinder, including the end of the bolt (it was unavoidable), then got two more partially cut off. During a break, I then stumbled on this Go2 Socket, which fits onto rounded-off nuts and bolts, and I bought it and lo and behold! it worked. I got two more nuts off on the back end of the drive shaft, nuts that were completely and utterly rounded off.

"Great!" I thought, "I started cutting into these bolts when I could have gotten them off with this tool, and now I'll have to take off the pinion just to replace those bolts that I unnecessarily cut into."

The Go2 Socket was too bulky, however, to fit on the 4 bolt heads that go to the front of the driveshaft, two of which were already a little rounded off, so I thought, "Well, I guess I'll have to cut those off anyway." I decided to go ahead and run to NAPA and just give the 9/16 6 point socket a shot before I started cutting into these bolts. I put the socket on my impact driver, with an extension to get over the crossmember and a 1/2 to 3/8 inch to use my 1/2 impact driver with the 3/8 inch socket, and (I had previously PB blasted it all) the bolts all came off! Even the ones I thought were rounded off on the front end, were only partially rounded from trying to use the 12 point 9/16 socket, but not enough that I couldn't still get them off with the 6 point socket.

So... the correct 9/16, 6 point socket, helped. Also, I have to point out, I did try a 9/16, 6 point socket that was for a 1/2 drive socket wrench, and it was actually too bulky to fit correctly onto the bolts on the drive shaft. The 3/8 sized 9/16 socket was skinny enough, and allowed for a skinnier 3/8 extension, to fit onto the bolts and nuts.

Finally, for anyway else who stumbles on this and makes the same stupid mistakes I did, the flange that the bolts on the back side of the drive shaft are trapped by comes off pretty easily, albeit I used my impact driver. Once the drive shaft is off, you can see a huge nut that has to come off. It was something like a 28mm socket (don't quote that). With the impact driver, that nut came off easily. Then I took my fan blade/clutch removal wrench as a kind of pry bar, and I used that to free the flange; after it was freed, it slid straight out, along with a washer that was hiding behind the already-removed socket. Be careful: Transfer case oil began draining out slowly but continuously after this came out, and it'll get on you if you're right under it.

Once the that whole flange assembly (i.e. the transfer case output shaft flange) was out, I used a flat bladed chisel and a hammer to lightly tap the circlip around the flange until it was spaced over a bolt head.




Look up circlip and you'll realize what I'm talking about. Even with the circlip spun around to where the gap was directly over a bolt head, the bolt head was still trapped underneath it so I couldn't remove it. I ran to O' Reilley's and found circlip pliers, called snap ring pliers there. They didn't work great, they didn't spread the circlip very wide, but after fighting with it, I was able to spread the circlip out enough on each bolt to remove it and replace it with a new one.

Bolts all replaced, washer put back, whole assembly pushed back into place, and nut tightened on at something like 119lb of torque. Again, my impact driver helped me get it started, then I finished it with my torque wrench.

Other threads go into more detail on finishing the front drive shaft installation, but this is if you really screw things up like me and have to actually replace the bolts that go to the back of the drive shaft, not just the nuts.

I hope my published failures help others have better success.

Oh, and AB did send me another transfer case plug for free, calling me on my phone 30 minutes after I PM'ed them on this forum and taking me at my word, free plug and fast shipping. Great customer service. Strangely enough, the new one they sent me yet again still has a chunk out in the center. It's a mystery why they all have chunks missing, but I guess it shouldn't affect the plug, as the sides of the 1/2 socket hole are pretty well intact.