Not an exciting update, but want to keep the build up-to-date. I tackled the front axle swap on the 4th of July. I took off the 5th and 6th thinking with 5 days I'd get both the front axle and the transmission swapped. Seemed reasonable... but with the front axle I think anything that could go wrong to hold me up did go wrong. Didn't even finish the axle in those 5 days and took me this past weekend to finish it up. In fairness, I also take a lot of beverage breaks when its "feels like" temperature over 100 in my shop due to humidity/heat index.
Problems started with the first step - loosening lug nuts prior to jacking her up. One nut just spun on the stud. I'd cross-threaded at some point I guess. Fortunately it wasn't totally tight and I was able to make a tool with the right bends and a notch to go around the stud under the nut and apply pressure to get the nut to catch good threads and back off. Way too long spent to get the tire off! And then I'd forgotten that the front lug studs are different than the rear. I had a couple extras for the rear, but it cost me a trip to the parts store to get the fronts.
Exciting pic of the difference in the studs
