Hey ya'll,
Been a while since I've made a post but I ran into some issues. I've been running 4.88's in the rear for about 1500 miles and just got around to putting the fronts in (they've been sitting in a box.). I pulled the punkin blah blah blah and took all the spiders out took the caps off got all ready to pull the cage and....nothing...couldnt get it to budge. I even pinned the case under a forklift and jumped all of my 230 lbs on a 6 foot prybar and that thing will not come out. I was going to use heat but I didn't want to damage the aluminum (I think) case or the tempered parts inside. After looking through a directory I see there is a special tool for this... however no one has it. I am going to run the case and stuff to a shop tomorrow and see if they'll do it for cheap since its already stripped down and i litterally just need the ring and pinion in, nothing else.
Before I do this I want to make sure there isnt a little trick to this. Ive succesfully lifted the truck, put rear gears in, and lots of stuff just fine but this one stumps me and everyone else at the shop.

Many thanks in advance
EDIT: Its in my signature but its a 2001 f150 4x4 offroad 5.4, this is the front 8.8 IFSr I'm dealing with.

 

I took the the axle apart to get the carrier out. Take out the 4 bolts connecting the two halves of the axle and it will come out.

 

Like this

 

Yeah i did that, I gutted the entire thing so the only thing there is the pinion assembly and the carrier which is apparently held in by the force of god.

 

wait wait wait....When you pulled the caps off, where your main carrier bearings exposed? Thats what your picture looks like
Mine have races surrounding them and I think that might be a partial issue...I made sure to pull anything that may be holding it in thru the axle tubes.

 

yeah they had races on them, that pic is me getting the old bearings off to replace them with the new ones. do you have the spider gears and everything else out?

 

Yes it is completely stripped down, the ONLY things in the case are the carrier, pinion, ring, and the respective bearings. Turns out my alignment shop does gears too so im going to get there opinion on this too. So far everyones been stumped.

 

so you took out that 6" piece of axle that is on the passenger side of the housing? because that is what was holding mine in.

 

here is a pick of mine where i got stuck. but after i took this piece out, the carrier slid right out.

 

Yes I took that off before I even started to pull the carrier. Maybe some piece of hardware is stuck in there? What could be in there? I don't think they're are any colar or anything...

 

i dont know man, mine came out pretty easy tho. its not binding with the pinion is it?

 

That's the only thing I can see realistically happening..I could unbolt the pinion, but if that's the case , putting it in is gonna be a hell of a time.

 

but you are taking it apart anyway, what woudl it matter.

can you spin the pinion?

 

Yes its all spins, no binding. Today I went to my alignment guy and told him I had a 8.8 ifs problem and right then he said "let me guess, you took it all apart and found out the carrier was stuck" I asked him how much since it was stripped down to just the carrier, case, ring, and pinion, and he said 370. So I told him that price was fine if he pressed all new bearings in, set up backlash and all that stuff, put the passenger side axle all together, and gave me a complete diff back ready to go in the truck, and he agreed. So I guess 370 ain't to bad, I was gonna give him a hard time for 200 but he does good work and I need it for a big group trip for some crawling and mudding in PA this weekend, and he said it'll be done in a day.
all in all It worked out I suppose, now atleast its not my headache.

 

Oh I forgot to mention that yesterday I got it too come out halfway by unbolting the d/s flange and beating it out with the pinion. (Before anyone freaks out about that, im replacing all bearings and gears, so it didn't matter if that wrecked the ring and pinion.) But then I realized even if I got it to come out it isn't going back in.