Rear Driveshaft won't come off

[rmcquet]

Was planning on taking apart the tcase yesterday to fix some leaky seals/gaskets. Got the car up on a friends lift & took the bolts off the rear drive shaft. But there was so much tension between the shaft and the companion flange that I couldn't get it off.
We tried prying it off with a bar, but it would just spring back into place.
Also tried lifting the rear diff a bit with a jack, but no luck.
As we put the car back on the ground, I only saw about 1/2 inch of travel in the shaft (got longer).
The front shaft I was able to remove without any problems.

From reading other posts, this is clearly not normal, and the culprit is that it's clogged with grease.
But what is the best way to unclog it and where is the hold located?
And what are the implications of driving the car when the rear shaft has that much tension between the tcase and rear diff?

BTW, it's all stock. No lifts or changes to the springs that I can tell. I'm not original owner.

Thanks!

 

[Pighead]

Unscrew the grease nipple.

 

[gulp3000]

Unscrew the grease nipple.

...and watch out for flying grease when you compress it!

 

[rmcquet]

I took off grease zirc nearest the tcase. A very small amount of grease popped out. I have not tried to take the driveshaft off yet, however, but much less grease than I would have thought given how much pressure btwn tcase and rear diff.

But does just taking that off solve problems? Where is the grease normally supposed to come out when drive shaft compresses? Isn't there something I can clean so that it operates normally in the future?

Also haven't heard what sort of problems that could be caused by consistenly having so much tension in drive shaft?

 

[Blue77FJ40]

Take a large screwdriver or prybar and pry out the flange on the lower end. Don't want the upper end falling on you !

Pry between the ds flange and the diff flange. It'll come out.

 

[rmcquet]

I tried prying it out. I swear we had a crowbar on each end and we even tried hammering a screwdriver in between the two flanges. Still no luck.

Weird that this thread generating no interest - has anyone else experienced something like this?

No thoughts on whether it's bad to be driving it with that much pressure?

Where is the grease supposed to be coming out?

 

[gulp3000]

Mine acted the same. I popped the zirk out and it compressed fine for removal. No idea if the pressure causes any issues, but it seems like a common situation and no one seems to have problems related to it.

 

[Pighead]

Usually, taking the zirk out solves it...maybe you've got a s***load of old semi-solid grease constipating the DS travel? Maybe try a little heat around the slip joint while prying it off the pinion flange?