04 4x4 Front Axle Seals Leaking

[ybnaford]

Right before my hunting trip last week I did the normal routine service and noticed while under the truck that the axle seals were leaking on both sides. I did not want to see that, but being an 04 with about 150k miles I guess it was inevitable. My questions are: Is the front axle pretty easy to remove without dropping out the entire front end? And, is breaking down the axle to get to the outer seals easy to do as well? I have done just about everything there is for a shade tree mechanic to do on routine replacement items but have never taken out an IFS axle to be serviced. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.