Forgive the cut-n-paste, but this is something I've posted before.
Removing the yoke doesn't require any special tools; however, it would be nice to have a proper 'roll pin punch'. The end has a raised bump in the center. The bump fits into the hollow roll pin, and keeps the punch centered while you hammer on it. It just makes life easier. It should also be long enough to get the other end up above (or down below) the transaxle housing where you can get at it more easily with a hammer.
Tap, tap, tap won't get you anywhere. Give it a good whack... just don't hit your hand.
With the roll pins driven out, the inner U-joint yoke may still fight you coming off of the output shaft. To get it off:
Remove two of the wheel's lug nuts, and loosen the other two (across from one another).
Jack the car up and put it on stands with the wheels well off the ground.
Rotate the wheel until the two remaining lug nuts are up and down, grab the top of the tire (reach in, and wrap your grip around the top of the tire), pull outward firmly to take up any slack, then give it a firm jerk outward. Using the tire as a pry bar, the yoke should pop the rest of the way off the output shaft without much effort. Remove the wheel and continue with the rest of the task.
*~*~*~*
The yoke and the output shaft are both cross-drilled with matching holes for the roll-pin that secures the yoke to the shaft. If no shims are installed, then while holding the yoke fully inward, the yoke will slide onto the shaft too far. As a result, the roll pin holes will not align. The inner shaft's roll pin bore ends up to far outboard relative to the yoke's bore... which by comparison is too far inboard. If you use an awl/ ice pick/ small screw driver/ stiff wire, and slide it in along the inboard side of the hole through the yoke (the side closest to the transaxle), when it gets to the output shaft it will run into the step between the two bores, and stop. On the other hand, if you slide the poker in along the outboard edge, it will just drop off the mis-match step, and keep going... and that's not the condition you want.
Start adding shims, moving the yoke outward, and reducing the mis-match step to zero. Then add one more of the thinnest shims, moving the mis-match to just beyond zero. Now when you slide the poker in along the inboard edge, instead of stopping against the step, it will fall off the step and keep going. Slide it along the outboard edge, and the poker will stub it's toe against the smallest of steps (thinnest shim available... 0.005") and stop. That's the condition you want.
After the yoke/ halfshaft are installed, insert the roll pin with the split crosswise to the halfshaft. It can face either way, but it should be across the shaft, NOT along the shaft. That orientation will allow the roll pin to act like a spring, and compress to slip past the small bore mis-match step. With the step along the outboard side of the pin bore, the compressed roll pin will force the yoke inward, seating it firmly against the spacer sleeve/ diff housing journal.
If insufficient shim thickness were used, and the step was still on the inboard side of the pin bore through the yoke, then the compressed roll pin would force the yoke outward, lifting it off it's seat on the spacer/ diff housing journal. Then the inward compression forces of the suspension geometry force the shaft inward when normally loaded, or allow it to move outward when the suspension is lightly loaded (ie, getting 'light' going over a rise/ hump). That little bit of loose motion can result in fretting wear in the spline joint, and result in a fatigue fracture of the roll pin. It's important that shims are added until the pin bore alignment shifts from too far inboard, to just a minimum too far outboard. None of which has anything to do with the transaxle's side nuts ("multi-tooth, multi-slotted ring-nut").
In the past, Steve Veris has sold the shims... check with him. Or order them from RD Enterprises/ Richard Winter. Failing all of that, they're the same size as the shims used to set the end-float in a GMC 4-71 supercharger, so get them from a GMC Truck Service Center.
*~*~*~*~*
The proper roll pins require not only the correct diameter x length, but also a slot of the correct, generous width. Many of the Lotus Specialists used to sell standard 'hardware' roll pins with a very narrow slot. That allows only minimal 'spring' compression during installation. Once the slot closes up during installation, the pin effectively goes "solid", and an abusive level of hammering is required to drive it in. That is NOT correct. A correct roll pin never closes up 'solid'. It still has to be 'driven' in, but not "hammered mercilessly" to get it in.
The roll pin crosses two joint lines between the yoke's inside bore/spline, and the output shaft's OD/ spline. If insufficient shims are used, then it's common for the roll pin to fatigue fracture along one or both of the intersections. Once that happens, and the shaft & yoke move, creating a step in the roll pin bore, it can be an exercise in futility trying to drive the roll pin out (ie, the end you're pounding on hits the step, and stops). In that case, it's more productive to use a 'broken screw' extractor to remove the outer stubs, center the inner stub, slide the yoke off, and finally drive out the inner stub."
Regards,
Tim Engel
