When iremoved my shaft i used a wheel puller(large one) from sears and it only took a few turns of the wrench to break it free and a few skined knuckels
as for the bearing the hack saw blade in in the bearing and re assembeled upside down works the best a trick i have used is to cut almost all the way thru in 2 places and then use a small chisel that fits between both cuts and then tap the metal up and then thru the bearing the cut will roll up like your opening a sardine can
