Picture the little device that they sell to retrieve parts from
cleaner.  It is held like a syringe with your index and middle finger
holding the device and your thumb through a loop in  a wire in a
housing. when you move your thumb small "fingers" on the other end of
the wire can (very rudimentary) grab the part.
They used to make a large version of this just for what you want to
use it for.  I used one around 1961.

BAD LUCK <dileonardo3@comcast.net> wrote in article
<1166995641.120725.198130@i12g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>...

Take a long tube of some sort - quarter-inch brake line, half-inch
electrical conduit, etc. - and run a doubled-up wire up through it so the
two ends of the wire stick out of one end of the tube, and there is a loop
large enough to fit around the axle stub at the other end.

Snake the tube down towards the axle stub, positioning the wire loop around
the axle stub.

Pull on the two wire ends to tighten the loop and capture the axle stub.

Remove the tube with the axle stub attached to the loop at the other end.

BTDT.....many times

What's it have in it?  Did you break the axle by overpowering it?  I have a
62 500 2dhtp with a 390.