I'm doing my 3.5 swap and I'm having a hell of a time trying to remove the *#$#&^ passenger side axle!!!! The driver's side came out in 5 min., but the stupid retainer bearing is frozen in place!

Here's a picture of what I'm talking about.


I removed all three bolts. Not my pic BTW. It's frozen so bad that it appears as one metal piece. I used some of that orange penetrating spray to no avail.

Can I just drop the transmission and then hammer away at it later? Is there a way to remove the stupid bearing retainer from the engine? Should I just cut the inner boot, pull the MF, and get a new axle? If I just separate the axle in two by pulling the piece out of the inner boot, will it clear the engine bay?

 

Nice red X

 

hehe, looks like webshots doesn't like direct linking to a pic. I was hoping I could get away with being lazy and not hosting it myself.

So, here we go again.



After looking at the FSM some more, I see that the stupid thing can be unbolted from the engine. I might have to unbolt it and drop the tranny, then pull the engine out. Then I could hammer away at it a lot easier with it out of the car.

 

Remove the three bolts that attach the support bearing bracket to the engine and pull the entire axle assembly out in one piece.

 

yup, what eng92 said. you might not even have to take that bracket off the axle (i don't remember when i saw my friend do it and i haven't done the 3.5 swap myself).

 

The problem is that it's frozen in there. I've spent too much time trying to separate it from the bracket already.

Another problem I'm having is with the exhaust. The y-pipe came off the stock headers pretty easy, but I can't remove the stock y-pipe from the cat. I can't remove the cat from the resonator either. The stupid nuts are smaller than an 11mm, but bigger than a 10mm. It's not 3/8 or 7/16 either. Looks like I might have to buy the WS catback.

 

In situations like this, application of heat with a torch will break up the corrosion and unstick the two parts.

One time when I did a clutch job I got lazy and just left the passenger side axle in place and pulled the transmission away from the axle (and engine). It made it a bit tricky stabbing the tranny input shaft into the clutch and the axle into the transmission at the same time, but I was able to do it.

 

I have done this both ways on 2 different Maxima's. The first time I separated the bracket which was a real biatch. It took a lot of chiseling and pounding etc.

Second time I just removed the 3 bolts that hold the bracket to the block like eng92 has shown, its much easier.

You don't have to separate that fitting to do a swap just remove the whole bracket with shaft and bolt it on to the 3.5.

In regards to the exhaust, sometimes the only way is a cutting torch to blow the heads off the bolts/nuts and extract after removal.

 

in relation to exhaust: cut the bolts (torch, sawzall, dremel) the drill them out and replace with new SS nuts bolts and washers (my y-pipe took forever because of that, i cut the bolts by the resonator removed the y-pipe +cat and then separated them by cutting those bolts on the ground. i believe the cat flanges have threads for the bolts.
good luck

 

If the torch doesn't work, use a grinder with a cut-off blade. Worked for me when i had the same exact problem with the exhaust.