thanks for the motivation, fellas. but the thing that's actually fukced up is the connection of the driver side inner CV joint housing to the intermediate drive shaft. The intermediate drive shaft is in the middle of the car bolted onto the back of the engine near the oil pan. It is basically an extension of the driver's side drive shaft to connect it to the transmission which is on the passenger side.

I put the passenger side CV joint in successfully and it connects directly into the transmission (without the need of an intermediate drive shaft).

So that connection at the intermediate drive shaft is what's causing the problem. In hindsight, it probably would've have been more cost effective and convenient to just rebuild the new CV joint into the existing inner CV joint housing instead of actually trying to beat it to all hell trying to get that housing out. All whe had to do was take the inner boot off the new CV shaft, add more grease to the tri-knuckle thing, and then attach the new boot to the existing (stuck) inner CV joint housing and apply a new boot clamp.

But that's about 36 hours too late.