I did manage to pull the shaft back enough without turning the nut and in conjunction with lowering the tranny I was barely able to get the shaft off and on. I only have to put it back together today. A word to anyone who buys the flex disc from uro parts - the supplied nuts are too hard to thread on the supplied bolts. After struggling with the hardware I took a nut, put it in the vice, and I needed a large breaker bar and I barely had enough strength to thread it on. I know how tight these are supposed to be but these are definitely out of spec. I'm going to buy new nuts of the same type and use loctite. Thanks to everyone for all the input.