DIsconnected CV joint installation issue

There's a lot of different designs depending on which company built the half shaft. Some use a wire ring inside the housing. It sits in grooves and won't pop out on its own. That retains the rollers. Some have a metal band, usually silver or gold, on the outside of the housing. It has three large tabs that get bent down to hold the rollers in. Often you can get that tripod out after bending up just one of the tabs. Still others will let the rollers come out after you pivot the shaft as far as it will go. You can't reach that point with it fully installed. You can only pivot it enough when other stuff is disassembled. That's most likely what you're running into. With the bottom of the strut disconnected, the spindle can flop out on top and make the shaft extend too far. What might work is to let the spindle flop out, then pop the inner joint out of the transmission. There's a fairly substantial spring inside it that holds the housing in the transmission while you're driving, so expect to have to tug fairly hard to get that joint out. If you can do that, it will allow you to twist it further and perhaps be able to push it back together. Once the rollers go in, they should stay there once the joint is straight to the shaft.

One thing to be aware of is on most inner CV joints, those three rollers are held on with circlips, so you can pull the joint apart and then pop it back together. I've had a few where nothing holds the rollers on. When you take those apart, at least one of the rollers will fall off the tripod, then you'll spend a long time searching for the needle bearings on the ground or in the grease in the boot. When you get the joint back together, try to rotate it forward and backward. There should not be any clunking or looseness between the shaft and the inner housing. Those are highly-polished parts with very tight clearances. If you feel any knocking, I would be suspicious one of the rollers fell off.

One other word of warning that might not apply on something this new is there were some Ford transmissions that had a final drive gear that was held in place by the two inner CV joints. You could remove one joint or the other, but never both at the same time. If both joints popped out, as in when two people are working together and each is replacing one of the struts, that gear will fall down. I never had that happen to me, so I don't know how involved it is to get that gear back in place. Better is to be safe and just pull one side out at a time.

I wasn't able to find a drawing of the separate parts, probably because Ford expects the entire half shaft to be replaced, but I do know that you can buy all of the individual parts for Chrysler CV joints from the dealer's parts department. You might consider asking at the Ford dealer if they show the separate parts in their parts catalogs.

If it will help, here's Ford's procedure for replacing the half shaft. The torque specs are included. I also noticed they say the axle nut on the outer joint is a "torque-to-yield" nut which means it's a one-time-use nut and must be replaced every time it is loosened. Copying these instructions was kind of cumbersome. If I accidentally cut something off, or if you can't read any parts, let me know and I'll try again.

Also be aware to never allow any vehicle weight to sit on the wheel bearing when that axle nut is not tightened to specs. I warn about that all the time, but this is the first time I saw that warning included in this procedure. Setting any weight on the bearing when the nut is loose will instantly make it noisy. It will make a buzzing noise like an airplane engine.