wait till you try to remove the hubs

you can losen the nut and drive a few figure 8s and they will break loose some times

most I have seen have to be smoke wrenched off

you need to talk to DrDiff for sure

there is a good write up on the history of the 8 3/4 and talks about the diff in axles and chunks on the 57 up early ones in the archives IIRC

some thing about splines and the thrust block size or what not