i have a destroyed front differential. i already have a used axle bought, but i cannot pull it until tue/wed. i didn't have a vehicle all last week and the thought of not having it another 4-5 days was driving me crazy. i couldn't just pull the driveshaft because it's the gears inside that are all chewed up; the gears would still grind against each other even if there is nothing driving it. so i found a quick and easy way to get the jeep up and working just so that i have a vehicle before i can get it completely fixed up. this method does not require the axle to be removed and should not take 45-60 minutes.
1) i started off by removing the driveshaft. one of the bolts got stripped so this was actually the most grueling part of the whole thing for me. what should have taken 10 min ended up taking over an hour. i should've just straight up use the angle grinder from the beginning.
2) open up the differential cover.
3) start off buy removing 25 - Pinion Mate Shaft Roll Pin. i just punched it out with a hammer. only one side of the casing has it even though the slot is in both sides.
4) now you need to remove the 18 - pinion mate shaft. this step is why i was able to fix it up so quickly, and this will def not apply to everyone: the problem at this point is that the pinion mate shaft cannot be removed because ring gear is in the way (approximately 1/8"). i already have a front axle bought and ready to be pulled. this axle will be picked apart for parts and trashed afterwards. so i just angle grinded the ring gear until i was able to remove the mate shaft. if you don't want to grind it off, then you would have to pull the axles, pull the carrier and remove the ring gear, which would add about an hour or more to the job.
this is picture of the staff at the shop grinding the ring gear off. he said he wanted to get it started for me (i dunno why) so i took a picture while standing aside.
5) once the shaft is removed, 17 - Pinion Mate Gears should just fall off. put the shaft and the pin in and you are done.
and this is the end result:
the axles is secure, spins freely and is not geared to anything else. now i can use the jeep as 2wd with a destroyed front differential for a couple days (i know i can leave it this way since it's 95+ zj, but i want 4wd). and if it wasn't for that damn stripped gear, i would've finished this under an hour.
edit: you know, i'm just gonna make a separate thread for this post so that this will be available for search since there maybe other noobtards like me in the future who may need to do a similar thing.