I've a front drive axle on a '97 F150 4X4 that I cannot push out of the hub. Earlier axles popped right out with no problem at all. I've tried to push it through with a gear puller and used a BFH, as well. It won't budge. Any ideas? Heat, cold, other?

 

First, I'm going to assume you took the cotter pin out and removed the nut, right?

Once that's done, put as much pressure on it with the puller as you possibly can, then give the head of the puller as hard a whack as you can with a BFH. One good whack with all that pressure on it is usually all it takes (or less).

The spline has probably corroded itself together, and there's a lot of surface area there to corrode over the last 9 years. Worst case, pull the whole hub and CV shaft out (the inner CV joint to the axle flange is 8 bolts IIRC) and have them pressed apart at your local machine shop.

-Hope that works for ya!

-Joe

 

I was changing the ball joints on my second truck when I ran into this problem. All others went fine. Anyway, I had already used the BFH on the puller, and snapped head off of the puller!! After disassembling the puller so I could remove it, I unbolted the shaft at the flange which allowed me to separate the steering knuckle from the lower ball joint. Then I just pressed in the new ball joint and reassembled it. I'll deal with the seized hub if/when I need to in the future.

I'll finish it tomorrow after going for the alignment on my first truck.

Thanks!!