holding the hubs on

The front wheel hubs on a front wheel car are restrained from flying out of the bearings by the axle nut.  This seemed weird to me before because the axle floats axially.  It is actually the rear wheel bearing that can't pass through the knuckle and restrains the hub.  Here is a not to scale cross section:

The bottom line is that I need the end of the axle through the hub to hold the wheels on.  I don't need the CV joint and the now useless axles flopping around.  So I

Cut off the boot:

 pounded off the CV joint:

Extracted the guts (messy beyond your widest dreams).  (It is likely I will be killed for getting moly grease on things in the house.  Just sayin, Be skeptical of elaborate accident stories about me.)

Put back into the knuckle:

I then put the knuckles on the struts and back on the car to start assessing bump steer. I see two options for the connection of the steering arm and the tie rod:

1)  Adapt the Focus ball joint.  See how bad the bump steer is and reassess once driving.

2)  Drill the taper out of the knuckle, lathe a spacer, and bolt to a rod end. 

Will keep you posted on what I decide.  I could calculate bump steer, for either setup, but I don't have a feel for how much is tolerable.