a friend of mine turned down the outside of a 1 5/8 socket so it remove the nut on the pinion shaft. the socket was too big to fit inside the universal joint yoke so we set it up on his lathe and turned it down until it would fit. has a beautiful machined finish on the outside now.
i also made a "spanner" to hold the yoke on the rear differential while i turned the nut off. i cut a piece of 1/4" thick aluminum in a "u" shape, drilled four holes to match the yoke/universal joint bolt holes, and bolted the aluminum plate to a length of 1 1/2" square steel tubing. the handle could rest on the ground while i pulled on the breaker bar to loosen the nut. worked like a charm and it worked just as well putting it all back together again.
