WOW, Lex...great details man . Hope all goes well with it. I went the other route. Was in your shoes a month ago. Due to time, i just went and found another axle. I did however, after reading about the crush sleeve install, went with a sleeve eliminator kit. Once set, you can swap out yokes and not worry about the backlash setting. I went that way because of the ungodly force needed to crush the darn thing. Something in the neighborhood of 450#-600# needed. Help using a 6ft cheater bar.