Either way the flange has to come off so the preload will have to be set again on the pinion, it sucks there's not some kind of 2 piece seal that could come off by itself. The puller's really the only way to get it off, it'll pull the flange off off the pinion rather than want to push the pinion out the back but it won't really matter. I'd reinstall the new seal and try retorqueing the old crush sleeve without crushing it more, but it may crush it. It's worth a try, the worst that can happen is you'll have to drop the carrier and use a new crush sleeve. You should have seen what I did to the new pinion thread the 1st time I took it out to readjust the solid pinion spacer. I used a hammer and mushroomed the first 1/2" worth of threads. It took a few hours of filing it even and rethreading it with a thread file cause I didn't have a die that big. I don't know why I didn't just use the gear puller.
