Originally Posted by klungemonger

What? Man that's even more complicated than popping the ball joint.
snosurfa you aren't actually removing the ball joint. You take out the cotter pin, remove the castle nut, and use a hammer or mallet to whack on the little bump on the side of the knuckle where the balljoint goes into it. The joint stud will pop out and that's all there is to it.

Been a while since I did anything specifically D-series but I seem to recall at some point I was able to get the axles out w/o even doing anything to the suspension just cranking the wheel hard to one side then working at it. I had an axle pop out of the trans one time on it's own, that's how I knew it was possible to do w/o removing suspension!