I didn't touch the CV other than to move it on the driver's side. Hoping not to have to do anything with it on the passenger's side. On the driver's side and the passenger's side I've taken the hubs and snap ring off and just let the arm droop so far that the cv-shaft nearly pulls out of the bearings in the knuckle. HOPEFULLY I can do this on the passenger's side as well.
Oy, you did the tie rod the hard way. Stick a bottle jack with a peice of wood on top of it up against the bottom of the tie rod end so it's held in place. Then take an impact and whiz, off comes the nut. If the stud starts to spin with the nut simply put another crank or so on the bottle jack. Remove jack. Thread the nut onto the stud so it's about half way on the stud and the top threads of the stud are completely inside the nut. Whack with hammer once or twice...should fall right down. Remove the nut and the tie rod should pull right out of the knuckle.
I tried a method similar to what you describe for my ball joint last month. Nada. Remember I live in the land of road salt. Two winters seem to have rust cemented that thing in there really good. I have the proper press for it now but eh, don't feel like using it if I don't have to. I'm going to see how the lift goes and if it goes like the d-side I shouldn't have to touch it.
I have my own coil compressors. Putting a lift on my Ranger last year taught me the value of having a set when you're installing a lift at 11:30pm and there's no place open to get coil compressors.
I'm using JDMCRX's high density plastic spacers. I put some pictures of the rear up on my cardomain site in the GV page. Note that I painted mine black. I figured the white would be really obvious to Suzuki warranty people...
