I've been having tons of fun with axles myself lately. I began changing my front wheel bearings 3 weeks ago (because they were making unbearable levels of noise on the freeway). I got the driver's side suspension apart, but while jockying it around I accidentally separated the inner CV joint. I had the axle bolt out, but there was apparently enough friction on the hub end holding the axle in that it didn't matter. It took a retarded amount of force to get the axle out of the transmission, but once I did I tried to take the boot off and reassemble the joint. I wouldn't have tried this normally because I have near-zero confidence with axles, but I could get a boot kit same day and a new axle was going to be over a week away for the MT. I thought I had it all back together, so I put the new boot on and started to wiggle the joint around. It felt like it was kind of hanging up, so I forced the play a bit and it just fell apart in my hands. So, I gave up and just ordered a new axle.
So the next weekend, since I was still waiting on the DS axle, I decided to start on the passenger side. Everything was going swimmingly until I tried to pull the axle out of the hub. My car came from the midwest and has some rust/corrosion. Apparently that means that it's basically impossible to get the axle out of the hub. In the end it took a big ass gear puller, some map gas, and my 650ft-lb impact gun to coerce the damn thing out of the hub. Once out, it was immediately apparent that the axle itself was broken. The outboard CV joint had tons of play. It actually did still turn, but it was clearly not right. I've been having a drivetrain problem on my car for a couple months now that I was thinking was probably a clutch issue or maybe an angle gear problem (my angle gear leaks like a bastard). It basically feels similar to clutch slippage, but a little different, and is noticeable at anything over 50% throttle. So, now I'm really hoping that this axle was the cause of the problem since it was very clearly broken. I'm not sure whether or not I could have broken it with all of the force that it took to get it out of the hub, but I can't really figure how pushing on one end of it would have broken the CV housing. I guess we'll see once I get it back together whether or not the drivetrain issue still exists.
Anyway, after checking around at my local dealership and indy shop, $500+tax was the cheapest I was going to get a replacement. So I ordered one from Tasca ($360 + $40 shipping x 2 = $440 vs $550 local). The part description said "Axle assy w/AWD Right PARTS: Order by transmission type." I put in the comments "Manual transmission 6-spd M66." It took 10 days to get here via the slow ass UPS option and when it showed up yesterday I opened it and low and behold I have an axle for a GT.
I haven't contacted Tasca about it yet, but I'm sure they'll make it right. Did I do something wrong when ordering? It wasn't obvious I guess. Either way though, I'm out of another probably 3 weeks to ship it back and forth and the headaches continue on this pain in the ass car. Luckily I still have a backup car that I've been meaning to sell, but have had to keep around because the volvo breaks so often. I'm just praying now that this axle failure really was the drivetrain problem that I was experiencing and once it's fixed it will be solid again, but my luck to this point with this car has not been that good.
Oh well, at least this time it didn't take me days to get the wheel bearings off now that I know (from doing the rears) that all it takes is a little PB blaster, a torch, and a few serious hammer blows while still hot. One day this car will be be all sorted out ... then I'll probably decide I'm sick of it and sell it.