I’m the same, find the limit of my abilities by passing that point 🙂 which i guess is how we learnt before the internet and you tube :)but at the end of the day, you can just take it to a bike shop, so I reckon have a go. the first time I took a rear hub apart I had the two springs under the paws shoot across my garage. took me about 15 mins to find one of them.

check out this video here:

the free hub does come come off vertially. but it is not a straight pull up. watch it a couple of times and you will notice he turns and lifts. you can see it is obviously catching on something. that is the paws. he is turning anti clockwise which is effectively coasting. what that does is presses the paws down. i think what is stopping it is the paws are engaged and they are stopping the free hub from coming off. the paws are in the free hub body you are trying to remove. so when they are engaged they are caught by the shell of the hub.

check out this link for an explanation of how the paws work and you should see what I mean.

How Things Work: The Freehub Body

Im in Bicton and am around pretty much all day tomorrow so happy to have a look at it. just shoot me a pm.

I do think that now you have hit it with CRC and it is obviously crunchy. you need to get it apart and regreased. If you continue to ride it like that the CRC will break the grease down and it will be ugly plus what ever is in there grit wise is just going to wear. the result being, new bearings and maybe even new hub. so If you cant get it off, I would take it to a bike shop.

Clint