IX my front passenger side axle will not come out

[rzerob]

I spent a few hours today trying to take out my front passenger side axle and nothing worked. Before I get the "just use a pry bar" answer. Let me list what I did.

I first pulled it, to snap it out. It didn't come so I pulled a little harder and the race and ball bearings snapped out leaving me with just the inner cup.

Pry bar, all sizes I tried 4" to 2' long pry bars.

Multiple pry bars, one on each end. I tried the slow pressure route and the hard snap route to no avail.

Vice grips.

I made a "L" shape out of metal so I could get the lip and hit it with a hammer.

I even took metal cable, made a noose with it, and lassoed the cup on one end, wrapped the other end around a pry bar and pulled. I had almost 500lbs of force and it didn't move at all.

I am assuming that snap clip on the end is bent to all hell and won't come out through conventional methods. I was thinking I could take the other side off(I already did, including the axle) and tap it out from the other side. I forgot about the diff. So now I was going to take the front diff. out and I realized that the axle is still connected to it from the other side so I can't just take it off. I am at a loss of what to do next. Is there any other way to remove the axle?

[4x4_e30]

Maybe try having one person pull on it evenly, while the other hits it with a hammer.

[nando]

I would remove the other axle and push it out from the other side.

[The Dark Side of Will]

If you think that the clip is damaged, you may damage the diff hammering it out.

Try taking the access cover off the bottom of the diff and see what you can see.

[rzerob]

Just an update. I took the driver side axle out and got a good look inside. I figured I could see a messed up clip from the other side if it was bad and that there was no immediate need to drop the access cover off the diff.

I didn't see anything out of the ordinary so I went to tap out the axle. It took a while to dig through punches until I found a couple that would work.

After that a couple good whacks and it popped out. I have no clue why it would not come out the pry bar method. The clip is fine and there is no damage to the splines. All is good now thanks for the advice.