The NV271 Transfer Case (chain???) on my 03 has been rattling and/or slipping intermittently in 2WD for over a year now and makes all sorts of grinding noises when I try to run in 4WD...so much so I haven't had 4WD in over a year. I figure its about time to bite the bullet and "either" buy a re-manufactured TCase (to the sober tune of $1200+ which is really going to sting a lot) or open mine up and see if there's a chance in hell its something fairly simple...like maybe just a stretched chain? Problem is, I haven't found any online resources (ie: youtube, etc...) to help show what I'm up against with the NV271. I did call a couple local shops and guys who've been in business for 30 years are telling me they rarely work on/rebuild 'em anymore and I would be better off buying a re-manufactured TCase and calling it a day vs. bothering to fix or rebuild mine!?

Has anyone here on DTR successfully repaired a NV271 with similar symptoms as mine or by chance successfully "rebuilt" a NV271?

Any help, resources or advice I can get would be greatly appreciated!

 

How many miles are on it? What makes you think it's the chain that's stretched? Unless you've been running around in 4wd a lot, it shouldn't be stretched. Although it spins as you drive, there's no power going to it to stretch it. I've rebuilt many other NVG cases, never a 271, they're quite stout. I have seen them abused to death (pulling, etc) but they last a long time. They are fairly common at wrecking yards and not often overly priced.

 

Truck/TCase has 125K. I've owned it since 2005. I've used 4WD maybe 6 times on snow covered roads during winter and one time to pull out 10 medium sized shrubs on a friends property. Other than that, I have hardly used it much. I'm actually shooting from the hip here regarding my diagnostics skills since this is my first Ram 4x4 5.9L and I'm far from an expert re TCase symptom diagnostics. What I can tell you is, I disconnected the propeller shaft a few months ago in preparation for replacing the TCase with a used tcase but the deal went South since the part numbers ended up not matching. Anyway... when I'm driving down the road (2WD) I can here an intermittent relatively light grinding noise which tends to come and go... I might not hear anything for part of the day and then will hear it for 5 - 10 miles the next time I drive. Best I can describe it is it sounds like something engaging intermittently(?) I noticed the noise seems to act up more when its cold outside (fall/winter) and less when its warm out (Spring/summer)? I've checked the manual shift lever from underneath to see if its out of adjustment ant it looks to be adjusted correctly based on what the shop manual shows. Also, when I actually put the tcase into 4WD, there all kinds of pretty loud grinding noises. And when the prop shaft was last connected... the front tires were definitely not getting power. I was thinking about recording a video and posting the noises up on youtube to see if this would help some one figure out what might be going(?)

 

I had similar issues with the Tcase on my truck. Might want to check the fluid level as mine had some kind of leak and ran dry but was never leaving any visible puddle of fluid on the ground.

 

Where are you located? If you're close I would offer my time and shop.

 

Appreciate that (if only)... I'm located in Northern Illinois.