Help with halfshaft

[denguy]

The springy circlip is in groove near the splined end of the half shaft that protrudes thru the splined ID of the side gear on that side of the car. After the half shaft is pushed on thru it's side gear the circlip pops open a bit into the counterbore on the inward face of that side gear, preventing the shaft from pulling out of the trans during tight turns. I think the shafts are designed to slide back and forth on the splines a bit as the suspension moves during turning and hitting bumps in the road. The circlips also can make it a bitch to pull out the shaft.
I liked the "splitting fork" idea.

[fastivaca]

I had a stubborn axle in the past and even took the transmission with axle still attached to a trusted mechanic who couldn't get it out. Ended up breaking the transmission apart and putting in a replacement. That way at least I had the core for the axle and PnP accepted the smashed up transmission as a core on the replacement.

Once I had things apart it became apparent that the spring clip must have stretched to too big a diameter and wouldn't slip back down into the slot on the axle, you could see where the spring clip had "flattened" against the spider gear.

Hope that's not the case with yours.

[Festy46]

A circlip -- ok. But what it the circlip butting up against? Does anybody have any photos from a disassembled gearbox?
I would just be nice to have a real photo of the enemy, not just a mental image of what he might look like!

Here are a couple pictures of the axle with the spider gear attached like it would be inside the transmission. The cir clip has been removed from the groove in the axle. The cir clip looks like a round piece of wire that fits loosely in the groove on the end of the axle. In the pictures, the axle is pushed into the "transmission" as far as it can go. As you can see there is about 3/16" or less of free travel between all the way in and pulled out to where the cir clip would stop it from coming out.