True Confession on axle removal

Working on my kids Lexus/Camry yesterday, I used every trick I knew to pop the axle out of the transmission.   I tried all my long pry bars, they were too flexible.  I tried my spyder clutch fork but it was too small - 2.5 inch fork width needed to be 4 inches.  I tried a home-made steel cable slide hammer.   I have two nooses that slip over the tripod cup, then use a brake rotor as a slide hammer to slam the cables.   Even that didn’t work.   Then I tried a standard heavy crow bar.  It was too fat to get behind the cup, plus the housing surfaces are all sloping, so nothing to pry against.  Exasperated, I roamed the garage looking for something stiff enough to pry or hammer with.      

I found a Pick-axe/mattock in the garden tools.   Perfect!   The tip of the pickaxe was just right thickness and taper to wedge behind a flange on the tripod cup.    I hit the side of the mattock blade with the sledgehammer.   A few good whacks with a 8 lb sledge hammer and it finally popped out.   It had good stiffness at that angle. The axle was an aftermarket piece I had installed a few months ago.  The clip was wider than the stock clips I’ve seen.