snap ring removal on final drive gear D15

Well I believe the amount of play in my D15 rear axle is too much and I am trying to disassemble the parts to fix it. so it looks like someone else has already worked on it as I found some of the cap screws in the cover at bottom of the drive where new and then when I got that off I could see up in there the snap ring was not put back on it was just hanging there around the shaft and that lets the gear side around . so evidently some took it apart and could not get the snap ring back on . well I can say its looks really hard to see how it gets removed or put back on. there is just hardly any room to work with. Has anyone ever had to remove and put back ion this snap ring from looking up underneath the tractor. I cant be easy. laying on my back trying to get up in there is really tough. I would say if my tractor did not have the backhoe arms bolted to it and I could just pull the whole final drive of the trans it would probably be easier but I cant take it off without removing the backhoe. so I stuck working from the bottom looking trying to get the snap ring off and then I will have to put it back on again. is there a special snap ring pliers for this job? and I still have not got the shaft out yet as the manual says to put the cap screw back in the shaft and leave the shims out the take a hammer and drive the shaft out and if that does not work they have a threaded hole in the outer flange to use a puller on it. has anyone ever done this and got the shaft out without the puller by just driving it out from the other side ? and what is holding the shaft on other that the gear? the axle moves about 3/8 inch out then gets tight ?

The final drives I had apart were on an ED-40 and it was a few years ago. Looks about the same. If you are only trying to remove play in the shaft/bearings it can be done by removing shims from under the capscrew. Go slow with this as you don't want too much preload on the bearings. The snapring needs to be on. I don't remember how I did it on the ED-40, it was tricky though. Pry one end on with screwdrivers and then work it around? Or possibly snapring pliers.

The snap rings have pointed ends, right?

IIRC, I used a heavy-duty snap ring pliers with flat jaws. The jaws had some cross-hatching on them which made it easier to control when spreading them. 'Course it took a few times to get it on and seated.
This was on a D17, but it looks very similar to your D15

so I ended up taking my biggest pair of flat snap ring pliers and well I had to modify with my torch and got them to just open the ring enough to slide it on and just enough to get a start then took screw driver gently tapped it on. looked everywhere for big pliers but could not find any so like usual I make or modify my own. but they give you hardly any room to do that job..I had to have my son slowly slide the axle in as I held the heavy gear up and then after it was on I only had maybe 3/4 inch laying on my back looking up to get the snap ring on it. don't want to do it again