So I finished the axle change with another hiccup. First
to address some comments:

I meant "fill plug" when I said drain plug. When I mentioned I was thinking of just not bothering with the plugs, and get oil all overthe place by taking off the cover, I figured I could get oil back in. First, I though I could use a vice to hold the cover, and get more leverage on the fill plug, or I saw there was a small fill spout at the top of the differential. When I put the cover back on, I could somehow siphon the gear oil back in the small fill spout, checking the level with a home-made dipstick. I did not think of the problem of warping the cover.

Because I was using the bolt with two nuts locked together trick, I needed to turn the inner bolt unscrew things. Turning the outer bolt would result in un-locking the nuts. As such, I had to use an open ended wrench. My 14mm combination wrench is small, so thats why I had problems, at first.

When attempting to get off the 22mm mount-to-cover bolt, I was using my 14-in breaker bar. I thought that was enough leverage...Apparently I was wrong.

In attempting to get the top two cover-to-diff bolts off, I hadn't had the diff lowered. One of my jacking points was the giant subframe member that the diff is attached to, so the diff never dropped until I changed my jack point.

In any case this how the rest of it went...

I did finally find a 14mm hex-head socket at Tool City. I had to call about 20 Hardware and Auto parts stores before I found a place that had one. Coincidently, right after I found the store, my girfriend, out on a 6 mile jog, call me on the cell. She said, "theres a store here called Tool City. Should I ask them about that part you wanted?" I was pretty shocked and happy. I thought I'd have to chase down a snapon truck.

So with the hex head socket, I went to work again. I did put the cover bolts back in to prevent the warping lethermang warned about. At first, I put 18" of pipe over my breaker bar and couldnt get the plugs to budge from under the car. I did hold back a bit, becasue I was under the car, and I didn't like the idea of using so much torque. I then switched to a 36" pipe on the end of my 14" breaker bar. I stood beside the car, and pulled quite a bit. Finally the fill plug bolt moved. The drain plug still required 36" of lever arm, but not as much force.

Once I changed the jacking point as I mentioned above, The top two cover bolts weren't a problem.

The -C clip came out easily with a coat hanger.

I used a small pipe to tap the axle out of the hub, and removed the axle. I now see why removing the caliper is a good idea. It gives the axle a place to go while removing it from the differential. Without removing it, I had to "thread" the axle between the caliper and a brake hose. Had I dropped the axle when getting it out of the diff, I would have stressed the caliper hose.

I put in the new axle, threading between the caliper and hose again. I used a screwdriver to coerce the hub site of the shaft to get into position in the center of the hub. Here I had the problem Rick encountered...

I couldn't get the axle to slide into the hub. I lined up the diff and the hub, and got the axle in a couple millimeters. It would go no farther. I used a hammer on a piece of rubber (an old exhaust hanger I replaced while under the car) to attempt to tap it into the hub. this did not work. Thinking I was smart, I came up with a solution like Rick did. I purchased a 8mmx1.25 x 210mm bolt, and a 170mm bolt. These are just like the axle bolt, except longer. I put some 3/8" nuts on the unthreaded portion of one of these bolts as a spacer, and threaded it into the axle from the wheel side of the hub. With this setup, I could pull the axle in. It worked for several turns. I then switched to the real axle bolt, but it wouldn't reach the axle...still more pulling to do. So I put the longer bolt in and brought it in a little more then...clink...THE BOLT BROKE OFF INSIDE THE AXLE!!!!

Thats the second time I've broken a bolt in this operation, and I don't even have strong forearms! This time it broke because I bottomed out the bolt. I took out the axle and had a friend remove it for me. I don't trust myself to drill out straight and in the center of the bolt. Since I bottomed out the bolt, he figured he didn't have to torque it much to get it out. He used an EZ-out, which worked for about half the bolt, then it broke. He levered out the broken EZ-out and just tapped the rest.

After this, I put the axle back in (very easy since I now have experience) To pull the axle flush with the hub, I used a similar procedure with some minor variations. First, I threaded my longer bolt firt and counted how many turns before the bolt bottoms out. Then I threaded the axle and got it kinda tight without pulling the axle in. I unjacked the suspension, and jacked up the diff. I reversed that, and the axle came in quite a bit. I tighened down the axle bolt some more nd it slid very easily from there. I put in the real axle bolt, and buttoned everything up.

The rear end of the car is running well now.

Thanks for your help.

Paul