Can-Am - Rear Propeller Shaft Kit - 703500825

I broke the yoke on the rear end of my rear propeller shaft. The repair ended up being a little more involved than I thought it was going to be and challenged my basic mechanical abilities a little bit. At first I resisted taking as many parts off as I needed to but eventually realized that taking both rear tires and the right side fender well, and removing the rear brake caliper would really make things easier. The biggest issue was loosening the bolt that held the rear end of the shaft as well as putting it back on. There was very little room to get any stroke with the wrench plus getting the bolt started when putting the new part back on was enough to make a preacher cuss. My ratcheting box end would not fit so I had to settle for just using a standard box end. A stubby would have probably helped. I also had to unbolt the differential so it could be slid back to allow for putting the new shaft on. My big question when loosening the bolts for the yokes was whether they were reverse thread or not. After watching a Youtube video I found they were not. They were very hard to break loose because they are locked in with Loctite because there are no lock washers and no room for any.
There are two bearings that come with it that have to be press fit onto the ends that slip onto the spline. I don't have a press of any kind so I rigged up a bolt and washer affair to get them on.

Getting the shaft fed through the frame and getting front end lined up for the splines was a bit of a trick, but having the whole bike up on a lift made it so I could spin things pretty easily to help line them up.
Getting all the bolt holes lined up when reattaching the differential really should be a two man job and was quite tricky since the differential also is the mount for the battery box which also connects to the rear deck. I had to use a digging bar to pry things into place. Supposedly you can avoid much of this hassle by detaching the rear shocks, but I didn't do that, as you have to support the rear axles with rope or bungees if you do that.

It took me about three hours to get the old shaft removed and about 6 hours to get the new one in place and everything back together. When putting the spline bolts in I tightened them down first to draw the differential forward and then unscrewed them most of the way back out so I could apply Loctite before tightening them again. The trick was to not back them out too far and then have to start them in again. I rated this as average because someone who is an expert mechanic and who had better tools probably could have done it in less than half the time. For me it was actually quite difficult.