Honda IRS CV shafts on 420, 500, 520 models are swine to remove. There is no way of knocking them or wedging them out without damage to the diff. Tried the usual slide hammer approach, which sometimes woks on front CV shafts, but no luck. Pondering the problem, I decided to make up a pair of plates, similar to leaf spring shackles and put them onto the lower A arm to move the rear hub assy further out, then tighten the hub back up, which pulled at the shaft enough to start moving it out of the diff. It was really tight, slide hammer still no good, but the shaft had moved far enough to hit the now visible end of the CV unit with a drift. Old shaft splines had grease on them which had gone hard, and it looked a bit rusty too, which is probably why they stick. Anyway, two bits of flat bar with 10mm holes in them are a fairly easy removal tool to make.

 

Great job

 

Exicuted pretty much the same way. 1 pop on the axle and it was out. Was expecting a challenge.



192.168.100.1 192.168.1.1

 

Update, just had to remove the rear diff on a cockle pickers IRS 500, tried the same plates with bolts through method again and the axle splines pulled out of the CV shafts instead of the diff. Honda really laid an egg with those "dry" splines in the diff. Got the diff out, complete with shafts and finally parted one shaft from it, only to find shaft and diff splines so worn it needs a new crown wheel and shaft. So, as aftermarket diffs are cheaper than genuine crownwheels, it is getting a new diff and shafts.

Did a rear CV boot on a 500King Quad yesterday, shaft pulled out of diff dead easy, splines perfect, so on with new boot and shaft back in, job jobed in less time than I spent trying to pull the shafts on the Honda.