[Tom Endy]

You can install a Mitchell without pulling the rear end. If you plan to do it that way, pull the pinion assembly without disturbing the two large nuts. They hold the pinion pre-load in tact if there was one there to begin with. You need a proper tool that clamps onto the drive shaft. Mitchell can loan you one. All you need do then is remove the drive shaft from the pinion assembly and replace it with the Mitchell stub shaft. The assembly is then reinserted into the banjo. You can pull it into place using the torque tube flange and some studs with nuts on them.

Since it sounds like you already distrubed the two nuts you will have to reset the pre-load. You can do this by feel. Clamp the stub shaft into the pipe grabbers of a vice. Rotate the bearing pack and tighten the nuts until it feels reasonably snug.

The outer bearing on the pinion sleeve is not always a slip fit by hand. However it does need to slide and should not be a press fit. Many of the repos are not machined correctly and both bearings are a press fit unless you machine the outer part of the sleeve.

Tom Endy