please say no please say no... just fought like a motherf^%&er to get my destroyed drivers side hub off, and i need to change the axle seal. i read the tech article, and i'm guessing i have to take out the passenger side shaft too (which would suck a$$!) but has anyone done just the drivers side before? i'm bout to go open up my diff and look, but any advice would be great!

 

Yup...you'll have to pull the shaft out far enough from the differential...in order to pry the differential out.

EDIT: And now that I think about it, you should probably pull both shafts out anyway if you were going through a lot of mud and water....enough to make your fluid milky when it came out. You should pull them both out and clean the tube out.

There's no evidence that my truck has ever been wheeled, but I had a considerable amount of sand and dirt in my front axle tube when I changed my seals last summer...with 140k on the truck.

This is the write-up I used when I did my seals. It's for the Dana 60, but the idea is the same: http://dieselpowerman.tripod.com/Fro...xle%20Tech.htm

 

also make sure you mark all the bolts and crap when you go to pull the carrier as its line honed.

 

The Dana 44 doesn't require a axle housing stretcher to get the diff out. Just a little pry on with a bar. And I agree with Rom, Id take both shafts out and give everything a good cleaning, inspection, greasing, and new seals. Tani is right too, make sure that diff goes back in EXACTLY how it came out, and you arn't going to do anything with the seals if that diff doesn't come out, requiring the shafts to come out too.