Here's something else I've done . . . Remove both axleshafts. And tap the stuck axleshaft out, from the other side
That’s a good idea @db4690 … thanks for posting, OP’s shop should consider it, and I’ll definitely add it to my own bag of tricks.
OP: I used to own a VW Rabbit years ago and I removed the axel shafts from time to time to do a routine bench service on the CV joints. Sometimes they’d slip right out of the transmission just by tugging, other times not quite so easily. I don’t recall ever having to use the slide hammer technique directly applied to the axel; usually a little prying (with a wood block in between to protect the transmission casing) from behind with a screwdriver or a tool I made by bending a piece of rebar into the right geometry, sort of a “J”, to which I’d then use a home-brew slide hammer technique using a weight lifter’s weight I had laying around. One other idea, I discovered by trial and error that it would become sometimes be a little easier to extract if I fiddled with the gear shift lever and clutch and turning the steering wheel and manually turning the wheel on the other side. I never figured out a systematic method, but somehow messing with all that stuff sometimes helped. I think it relieved tension between the sticking parts.
Edit: One more idea, I recall that one time it helped to jack up the other wheel so it wasn’t touching the ground.
but I do believe in being fair to my fellow man if he has put forth the honest effort to succeed. I never feel taken advantage of if I feel that I have received a best effort from the other party. I feel compensation and/or acknowledgement of effort pays off in the long run.
These are great words and sentiment. Very applicable to the OP's dilemma.
They did do something, didn’t they? If they sat around scratching themselves, they wouldn’t deserve anything. If they tried, they spent time using their professional skills to try to fix it when they could have been making money working on other cars. (As a brain surgeon, I expect payment even if i remove your healthy leg)
Have a thought. Would you want and would you feel you deserved to be paid at least something if you were him?
UPDATE. The Auto Shop I gave the car to somehow got the joint out of the transmission!! They said it was definitely the most difficult axle replacement they have ever dealt with. A little pricy but I’m grateful they were able to get it. I really appreciate all of these responses and suggestions (which I will be remembering in the future). What a pain in a$$ this was
Glad you got this resolved. Dealing with impossibly stuck parts and keeping at it until they unstick is what separates the pros from the amateurs I guess. Good on the pros at your shop for getting the job done for you. Best wishes, and happy motoring.
I’ll go one step further and say that even some mechanics have no idea. I knew a couple guys who were professional mechanics at dealerships but had the luxury of working exclusively on new/newer cars. When confronted with something like this, they were stumped and all too quick to pull out the nuclear option. We had to talk one off the ledge once and explain that patience, inventiveness and a stockpile of B’Laster PB was the order of business in these difficult cases…
Ah,PB Blaster,whoever invented that stuff should get a medal.Anyway someone mentioned an AC or furnace fiasco,reminded me of a time when I was having heat pump trouble,the laughable techs told me,that when I installed a second airfilter,it caused to much airflow and caused the coils to ice up,anyway the fiddled with the unit and completely killed it real quick(they will never come to this household again-ditto on bad mechanics)I pay people for what they claim they have done,but with poor results they dont get to gyp me a second time.
Every time @Tester talks about how he runs his shop, I wish he was local so I could have a mechanic to trust.
I remember back before I learned about cars, taking my Honda in for a no-start condition. The mechanic replaced one thing after another and never fixed it. I took it to another mechanic, who kept it for 3 days, charged me 8 hours of diagnosis, and told me he had no idea what was wrong with it.
I later found out with the help of a local Honda club guy that it was 2 bad fuel injectors, which when the car only has 2, is a problem.
I was pretty furious that the mechanics charged me money to throw parts at a problem, and then to “diagnose” it without checking to see if, I dunno, fuel was spraying out of the injectors?
$3,000 for inept nothing, and then the club guy fixed it with spare parts he had from an engine swap in exchange for pizza and a 6-pack. Made me recognize how valuable a good, honest mechanic is.
I had an old VW Rabbit with CIS K-Jetronic fuel injection years ago and if you wanted it to run well you pretty much had to remove the injectors and look at the spray pattern and measure the volume flow rate for each injector once in a while. That was part of my basic Rabbit tune-up procedure. It was relatively easy to do as each injector was attached to its own flexible hose. You just popped the injectors out of the head and put each one in a graduated cylinder. Then you could control the flow rate by pulling upward on the metering vane to get the angle you wanted.
But doing that job in engines using modern electrically-pulsed injectors and fuel rails wouldn’t be quite so easy. @shadowfax your post got me to wonder if mechanics even do that these days, look at the spray pattern of the injectors and measure their individual flow rates? It seems like it would be near impossible to do on the car, and you’d need some kind of test fixture to do it.
@GeorgeSanJose These injectors had completely failed. You wouldn’t have needed to look at the spray pattern to know something was wrong, you’d just have to see that they weren’t spraying at all. Both mechanics missed the basic question that I unfortunately didn’t know about with a no-start condition: “Does it have spark and fuel?”
With all due respect, I have a feeling that PB Blaster had nothing to do with removing that axleshaft
Well I certainly did not intend to suggest it had anything to do with success in this particular repair.
I have, however, gotten to the point that in almost every instance, I soak anything that is supposed to move with B’Laster prior to starting the job. It hasn’t hurt the cause yet
I’ve always used Liquid Wrench for rust stuck bolts. That’s what I started using years ago, and it has always worked better than anything else I have on hand like WD 40, so never had a reason to switch. A single can last me a long time is another reason I stick to the same brand. But I’m hearing a lot of compliments about the PB Blaster version here. Is there really much difference in unsticking performance among the popular rusted-thread penetrants?
I’ve still got a couple cans of Liquid Wrench and never use it once I started using PB. It just seemed like 90% of the time the bolts broke with LW but with PB, it seems to be 90% the nuts come loose. Especially if you give it some time. I could be wrong but just my subjective view.
According to a GM dealership that was local to me at the time an ase certified tech did this . My elderly mother received a recall notice in the mail . She called me . I called the dealership & set up an appointment . I took off work on the appointed day & took the car in . After sitting around for an hour or so they came out & told me , you have an automatic & the recall kits we have are for manual transmissions .
Part of the recall was replacing defective pcv hoses & other vacuum hoses . I asked what was different in the recall kit & was told the manual kit had a tee in the pcv hose for an extra hose the automatic didn’t have . I was told they would call & make another appointment when the appropriate kit came in . I wasn’t happy but I agreed to come back again .
They called & said they had the appropriate kit & made another appointment . When the day came I took another day off work & took the car in again . They said they fixed it & sent me on my merry way . Not long after all this I was giving the car a once over , checking fluids , etc & I noticed a fitting on the air cleaner that didn’t have a hose on it .
I started looking under the air cleaner for a hose & found the air cleaner was loose & wobbling around . I removed it still looking for a hose for that fitting & lo & behold I found the new pcv hose came out the back of the base of the carburetor , had a tee with a stub hose on it & had an old spark plug , plugging the stub hose . I did find the hose hanging loose under the air cleaner that I was originally looking for & connected it to the air cleaner .
By this time I was furious & called the service manager at the dealership & was told to bring the car back again . I did & the service manager removed the air cleaner , saw the wrong kit had been used & the extra hose plugged with an old spark plug , pretended he had no knowledge of anyone doing any such thing & said , I can’t believe one of my techs did that .
3 days missed work , 3 - 60 mile round trips to the dealership to get a pcv hose replaced . If I had been paying for this someone would have likely got hurt .
George, do not waste one more second using LW. Go buy a can of B’Laster PB and you’ll never use anything else again. Trust me.
I made the switch ~24 years ago. I was in the middle of tearing down an old BBC and could not get the harmonic damper off the crank snout. I had already graduated from the proper tools through stages of more destructive methods until I was at the medieval stage and didn’t care what happened as a result. I had broken a puller using my biggest impact when a friend dropped by and saw the events unfolding. STOP! Here try this…and he pulls this can from his trunk that looked like it came from the back pages of Popular Science, next to the xray glasses…yeah, right…
Reluctantly, I juiced up the snout end and was quite impressed by how quickly it sought out the interface and disappeared into it. Proceeded to toss back a beer while shooting the breeze. Afterward, I was reaching for the impact again and he said I should try a wrench. A HAND wrench?!? What are you nuts? Anyway, just to appease him I gave it another blast and went to get the appropriate sized hand wrench. It came loose! The balancer slid off like it was recently installed on a greased snout. The entire length and circumference of the contact area was completely soaked with B’Laster PB. It had totally penetrated the interface and broken the bond.
Over a short period of additional positive results, I threw out every other can of penetrant I had including the Kroil one guy had convinced me to switch to. And you couldn’t just get this PB stuff anywhere back then, it was hard to find.
Every single one of my friends now uses PB and anyone I have rescued with it has also switched. I’m convinced you’ll be a convert too…
I have no affiliation with product or company beyond being a fan of the results…
Over the years I have found very few fasteners that PB blaster will not un-stick. Those it won’t are usually on the underside, probably exhaust-related, after a decade or more of being exposed to MN winters.
If PB Blaster doesn’t get it, try a 50/50 mix of ATF and acetone. This stuff is noxious, corrosive, and will probably make you grow an extra eye, but it works when nothing else does.
