I was complaining to a friend of mine about the difficulty of swapping failure-prone CV axles on the trail, and also about the difficulty of getting the front differential in and out of the vehicle.
He showed me a great trick which greatly eases both processes. The stub axles going into the differential on either side have studs pressed into them. They are easily pressed out with a 17mm deep socket and a vise (see picture). If you replace them with bolts and nuts, you can remove CV axles without even pulling the wheel off the vehicle! You still have to unhook the stuff inside the hub, but you don't need to jack up the truck and pull a ball joint to get the clearance to pull the axle. This mod also provides more clearance to make it much easier to get the front differential in and out of the vehicle. Give it a try!
