Thanks Bill. Quick question, as I hope to get started soon ... I thought I'd put one foot on the end of the 30" crow bar and lean, while I whack the knuckle with a claw hammer. Do you think that will do it? How much weight on the bar and how forceful with the hammer? Should I try to put some penetrating oil between the knuckle and the ball joint stud?

Penitrating oil is not a bad idea. I've learned when it comes to lean and wack it'* good to have a helper. There is alot of force going into the bar and it letting go or slipping can cause a big hurt.
As for a hammer idk if a claw hammer will have a heavy enough blow and claw hammers tend to not be good on cars as they tend to catch the most expensive part of your car on the up swing.

yeah a lean and smack is bad alone last time i did it that way i got a 36 inch crow bar to my face before i knew what had happend..was spitting blood had to get stitches on the inside of my upper lip..lol

When alone I put a foot or two on the bar. It may work, being 30" ... maybe a helper pipe on the end of that would give your foot better leverage.

Give it a try. The easiest looking ones sometimes fight the hardest and the worst looking ones can pop apart nicely.

Thanks for all the replies. As I mentioned, the bearing on that wheel is bad, so I have already started to remove the old hub assembly before swapping the axles. I ran into a problem though.

The axle nut and the three bearing retaining bolts (t-55 torx heads) came off easily. But the bearing did not want to separate from the knuckle. On the inboard side of the hub assembly is the speed sensor. It is housed by a thin steel cover that is pressed onto the back of the three-bolt flange. I had to use a chisel to wedge the flange loose from the knuckle and also needed a 15" crow bar to pry it free. I found that the speed-sensor housing was rusted to the knuckle and came loose from the rest of the assembly when I finally got (most of!) the assembly apart from the knuckle. So that housing is still stuck in the knuckle, and the inboard side of the bearing is open. My choice seems to be to put it back together and drive it slowly to a shop (the safe choice) or to try to remove that speed sensor housing from the knuckle and continue with the hub assembly replacement.

Please advise.

I have spun off a new thread on this topic of part of the hub assembly getting stuck in the knuckle. I will try to post some pictures there.

Hate to admit defeat ... I gave up trying to separate the ball joint. Was not confident about being able to overcome the snap ring on the axle either. I did replace the shaft link assembly (bolt between sway bar and control arm).

I took the new axle into a small local shop and had them do the job. I told them they could take all day or even two days, whenever they had a lull. The estimate and the charge were $50, and the turn-around time was three hours.

I think they were able to get the car in and out fast without having to wait for parts or for interaction with me, so they didn't have to tie up a bay for long. I don't think they made out bad. Do you think the charge was pretty fair? Not sure of their hourly rate. Maybe it is about $60, probably not much different from most shops around here.

Thanks to everybody for your help. This car stuff goes a lot better when you have somebody to ask ...