Progress! I called Boston Industrial today to check on my socket, and they informed me that the factory had misinformed them of when it would be shipped, and so they were expecting it in today. Bugger.
Time to try the fallback plan. I stopped by the awesome hardware store this morning to check on a 35mm combination wrench, but was SOL. They carry SAE up to 2", but no large metric. Autozone didn't have one, and neither did Home Despot (there's a shocker). Instead, I opted to go with a large adjustable, which I'd borrowed from a guy at my office.
At Home Despot, I picked up a set of carriage bolts in case I needed to attach a lever arm to my old (toasted) clutch disk. I also picked up a spare 3/8" socket, which fits over the hammer end of the punch I've been using. With a short 3/8" drive extension, this yielded a long enough punch that I was able to punch out the crimps on the pinion shaft nut.
With the crimps punched back out, I slipped the clutch disk over the input shaft, put the adjustable wrench over the nut, and gave the flywheel a turn (with the transmission in gear, obviously). Lo and behold, the nut broke free.
I pulled the transfer case off, took off the bolts that hold the bearing carrier for the pinion shaft, and split the case. With a little more fiddling and disassembly, I've got the input shaft off, and dammit if I can't get the snapring out with my snapring pliers. I've got a set of internal snapring pliers, but I need a way beefier set to get that stupid seal block off. Another day, another trip to the hardware store or the auto parts store....
Incidentally, how should I go about flushing the transmission after I reassemble it. My basement isn't the cleanest place to work, and I'm a little concerned about contamination. Can I just fill it up with lighter oil (like 10w30) drive it for 10 miles to work any contaminants out, drain and refill with gear oil, or does somebody have a better idea?
Thanks,
Eric