Front Differential housing

Has anyone dropped a front differential housing on a 2nd Gen? The FSM makes it sound easy enough, unbolt the cross-member, unbolt the flanges and then "remove bolt" x 3. The 2 outer bolts come out without a problem, the upper bolt however, there is no way it's coming out without first either removing or possibly unbolting and sliding to the side the steering rack, the manual makes no mention of this. In order to remove 1 of the 2 steering rack mounting bolts it seems at a minimum I will need to remove the radiator. If that one differential housing bolt had been located 1/4" either way it would come out without all this additional labor. Feeling a bit exasperated at engineers that only are interested in how fast it can be put together on an assembly line.

Even though this post is more than 5 years old, I recently replaced my front differential on a 2003 Ford expedition and found a way to remove this top bolt without moving the steering that can still be helpful to others. Here's the trick -

First, loosen all three bolts. For the top bolt there's only room for a standard 15 mm 3/8 socket (not a deep well socket) with a universal or wobble fitting along with a few extensions so the ratchet can be turned from the front of the engine. As described in the original post, the top bolt cannot clear the steering u-joint because Ford used a bolt with a flared head. It's that 3/16 of an inch of flare that prevents it from clearing the steering. There would have been no problem if they had used a regular hex head with a large flat washer.

Then have someone at the steering wheel turn it very slowly in either direction and you will find there is one angle of the u-joint that is not as wide where the bolt is very close to clearing the steering. Maybe 1/16" of the bolt flare still contacting the steering.

The last step is to create a slight angle to the bolt by moving the differential. Strap the differential on a transmission jack, or use a floor jack with someone holding the differential, and remove the passenger side bolt and the second driver side bolt that is lower. Then have the person holding the differential slowly raise or lower the passenger side of the differential a small amount. The bolt angle will change slightly, just enough to clear the steering.

The trick to removing the differential so that it clears the crossmember mount and the oil pan is to lower the passenger side of the differential to about a 45° downward angle, then pull the differential toward the passenger side, then lower it through the opening. When reinstalling the differential you need to do the same thing in reverse - tilt the passenger side down, raise it through the opening, then push the differential toward the driver's side while raising the passenger side of the differential.

Finally, to make it easy to reinstall the top bolt I ground down the flange on one side of the bolt parallel to one surface of the hex head. You could also grind off the flange entirely and replace it with a large flat washer. There are plenty of extra threads at the end of that bolt to add a washer under the head.