I have decided that i need new axle shafts and I am trying to find some chromoly shafts with the ABS tone rings on them. All of the manufactures that I talk to say that theres does not come with the rings attached. They say just pop the old ones off and install them on the new shafts. Has any of you every done this before and if so can you give me some tips as how to remove them with beating them all to Hattie's?
Press the ring off of the old shaft, then press them onto the new shaft when your pressing on the new bearings, seals, and backing plates. Another option is to leave everything on your stock shafts and just pick up new tone rings, backing plates, and seals from a vendor such as ECGS (thats who I get all of my axle parts from as they usually have them in stock).
Edit: Just noticed that you had a TJ (I was thinking JK for some reason or another). You don't have to run the tone rings on a TJ as the tone rings are ONLY for the ABS, which is garbage offroad (IMO). Other rigs, like JKs and other newer jeeps use the tone rings to run the speedo, stability control, and ABS; so you cant really just turn it all off. Also considering you have a TJ with ABS makes me pretty sure that you have a dana 35 rear. If that is in fact that case then I really wouldn't bother wasting the money on chromos as they spider gears or carrier will let loose next. If you are dead set on retaining the ABS, then there are plenty of options if you were to upgrade to a 44, 8.8, 9", d60 etc. You just have to do some sideways math to match the diameter and tooth count of the rings on the front shaft to make everything work correctly.
When I swapped the axles on my 00 TJ, which had factory ABS, I just pulled the speed sensors and wires along with pulled the fuses out of the PDC for the ABS module which in turn got rid of the dash light.
Anyway, just my 2 cents.