Jon, I would have to, respectfully, disagree. When I replaced my front half shafts I didn't have to remove the lower ball joint to get the shaft out. Once the inner CV joint is taken apart there is more than enough room to get the whole shaft to slide out of the spindle from behind.

Umm, did we mention that? I assume (you know what they say about that) that you know the shaft needs to slide out of the spindle towards the center of the VX, but if you've never done this repair before it might not be that obvious.