Over the years I've done this on various vehicles. As I remember, you slide the center pin out of the way, shift the axle toward the center of the vehicle, and the c-clips fall out, as they have clearance and are well lubricated.

Well, now trying it on my '03 Suburban, and the c-clips are not coming out. It looks like the axle needs to be able to shift over another .050" or so before there is clearance enough.

Am I missing a step? I have a Chilton manual (have oem service manuals for all my other vehicles), and it's not enough help so far. I'm not impressed with the Chilton manual, but it came with the truck, so haven't sprung for the OEM manual yet.

 

Pull center cross shaft pin, rotate c clip so open c section is pointing up, smash axle shaft with a hammer toward carrier, clip falls out. Paypal me a couple hundred for the help....

 

Maybe I'd Paypal if I hadn't already tried that. Okay not, but thanks for the help. Maybe it just needs more bashing. Wanted to get a second opinion though before swapping too a bigger BFH, since maybe I'm missing a step which I'm unaware of.

 

Is the cross shaft pulled out? make sure the sun gear isnt moving when you hit the flange.

 

My current gripe with the Chilton manual is everywhere it says "see diagram", but doesn't say which diagram. So you can't quite tell which diagrams. And it also has one diagram that is more of a block diagram and it shows a U-shaped C-clip and which way to align it for some assemblies. It's so unclear it's frustrating. Can't tell if I'm supposed to be aligning the clip some way that I can't see. I think that was for a locking dif though, I'll have to look again.

 

The sun gear is on the sides as opposed to the planetary gears are the four set radially from the axle, rotating around the sun gear correct? I tried wiggling the sun gear side to side, seemed pretty tight. Maybe I should tap that outward with my rubber mallet.

 

The cross shaft, or pin, is 90% out, fully out of the way for the axle to shift inward.

 

nope C-clip should just fall out. rotate the clip so it read "U"

 

Thanks for the help. Gonna go out and try some more, now that I ate some dinner and got a second opinion that says I'm on the correct track. Thanks.

 

Paypal away...