The transaxle in my '01 Impala had a significant failure in the final drive area (maby a CV shaft snapped off inside the housing)
Most likly it'll have to come out for repair or replacement:
Any tips/tricks?
Drop the TA only or the whole front package? or???
I make a living working on medium to heavy trucks and have finally learned to ask others who've done the job how to make it easier.  

While I don't have a lift, I do have a lifting crain and a transmission 3,000lb transmission jack that I use for HD truck transmissions.
Looks fairly straight forward:  drain, disconnect the shift linkage and hoses, pull the CV shafts, mounts, converter bolts, slide left and out.
Having just installed new wheel bearings and discovering a bad CV boot I changed that shaft: It was some Chinese product sold outright, tomorow I'l pull it and see if it sheared off inside.....it sounded like something shearing off like an axle shaft, or spider gear pin.
I know better than to buy crappy parts, but didn't have much of an option at the time.  

On the 4T65 used in the Impala, you can pull the final drive without taking out the trans. Where the right axle goes in the tran, that end has a 4 bolt cover on it, pull the axle, then the cover, with a pan underneath, then your home free, the final drive carrier pulls right out.

I did a shit load of these on 01 Impalas, GM made some noisey final drives then.