Hi I have a 1997 F250 Heavy Duty 5.8 L 4X4.
My question is how does the right front (passenger side) axle shaft come out? I've taken every thing off ie spindle, knuckle and when I pull on the shaft it refuses too slide out, the drivers side pulls out no problem! I don't get it.. anyone familiar with this, thank you for your help!

 

There's a slip joint in the shaft, between the two U joints. It's covered by a boot. Cut the boot clamps and it should slide apart.

The stub shaft that goes into the diff has a retainer inside the diff. I've never had to dig into one so not much info there. I use a ball joint press to replace that inner u joint, with the shaft still in the diff.

 

If you remove the TTB diff (have to to remove the pass side stub-shaft) you can eliminate the retainer and use a spring in the slip joint (covered by boot). Been a long time since I did mine, I used a Chevy valvespring and cut it down. Won't have to remove that diff again.

 

Ok Thank you

 

This might help:

 

This is a huge help, thank you very much!

 

I moved the rubber boot off the slip joint, however no matter what I tried I could not separate the axle shaft from the slip joint. I tried heat, hitting it with a hammer and also using a crow bar, all these attempts took many hours of trying! I ended up using a sawsall to slice through the lower ball joint nut too remove the knuckle in order to install the u-joint! So it looks like new u-joint in axle shaft and new upper and lower ball joints! Thank you all for your help!

 

I've never had that slip joint fail to just slip apart. It needs to move freely in order to work as the suspension cycles. So it sounds like you've got something very wrong going on. Either you were trying to get the wrong thing apart or else your slip joint is seized. If that's the case I think you need to take the diff out so you can get the entire right axle assembly out of the case and get it all working correctly again. You will be doing nasty things to your front axle if the suspension cycles without that slip joint being able to move.