quick dewalt transmission dissasembly question

[Ryuzaki]

the Carrier Sun Gear in the dewalt transmission has four posts on it for the planetary gears. These need to be removed, but are extremely hard to do so. The dewalt white paper says nothing about them. Am I missing something?

[Tristan Lall]

How are you trying to remove them, and why do you want to do so?

If you've removed the last stage and are planning to install the plastic spacer, consider drilling four holes in the spacer, and using those pins to align it.

If you really want to be rid of them, use a grinding wheel on a rotary tool, and cut them off. It's been a while since I played with a DeWalt transmission, but I suspect that the sun gear, planet carrier and pins are a single sintered powder metal piece, so you can't press them out. Edit: See Fred's correction below.

[Fred Sayre]

They are not a single piece. You can press them out - we used hardened steel pins of slightly smaller diameter to press them out with an arbor/drill press, and then we drilled out and countersunk the holes for a bolt pattern.