horselady

After hearing some nasty intermittent grinding noises, tore my transfer case down to check it out. Found a broken rear tailshaft snap ring, and two struts and one spring had come out of the synchronizer . Chain had a little wear, but not bad. Went ahead and ordered a new bearing, seal, and small parts kit along with a new chain. Everything I have read on line suggests the DHD is not prone to snap ring failure, but mine was broken clean in half and had a small chunk of metal broken from the leading edge of the tailshaft bearing. Its all back together and I'm going to try to bench press it under the truck if it will stop raining today. I'm curious what caused the failure. Haven't done any off roading, or high speed shifts into 4wd. Truth be told, I only use my 4wd if I'm stuck in the yard. After I hunted for 3 years on craigslist to find my sport front end, I"m not going to risk it. lol Also this was my first transfer case build. I donwloaded the service manual and am proud to say I did it all myself!

Andy505

How difficult was tearing it down and putting it back together?

My tc has lost the ability to shift into 4wd at any speed above 30mph, so I'm assuming a rebuild is in the near future for me.

horselady

It wasn't bad at all. I sourced parts locally, and if I had it to do over again I would have just bought the master kit from quad4x4 in WY. I replaced all the bearings including rebuilding the planetary gear. anything over 250k miles you'll want to replace the chain and sounds like you will need a blocker ring as well. The two most difficult parts were replacing the front output shaft bearing in the case ( had to cut it out and put the new one in the freezer before installation) and the biggest pita was reinstalling the snap ring that centers the output shaft in the rear housing. I had to thread a bolt in the mainshaft and let it hang while tightening the rear housing bolts and trying to get the ring to seat.