Shameinator: I was reffering to the original post, the guy with the problem. I was trying to understand which side of the axle he was having he problem with. I don't mean I want him to take a sledge hammer to the thing I was talking about grabbing it by hand and doing a fast jolt to get it snapped into the trans. If the issue is with the splines and it won't even start to spline into the trans, then yeah you need to be carefull and file the splines to clean them up, or replace the axle. The splines on the differential could have taken a beating as well, and if it got bad enough, then yeah he's in a world of hurt. I've dealt with this situation more than twice, and usually the axle clip just needs to be replaced, but i've always been able to muscle the axle in. Reman axles are cheap from auto parts stores if you are really worried just spend the 50-100 dollars and just replace it.