General vehicle thread

[Irving]

That is all I have for photos. Review Lorenzo's posts about the pins in the shift rails and make sure that you check that you've staked each drive shaft nut as you put them back on, have all your snap rings and bearings back in place (the bearing on the idler gear will no longer have a snap ring so you should have one extra when you're done.

A few notes on reassembly:
- When you get the cases back together, both the shifter housing and the 4wd motor will still be off the case. What I did was put the shifter housing, AND the shifter back into place. This allowed me to shift into 4-low, which allows the shift rail for the 4wd motor to be pushed in. Once you install the 4wd motor, then shift back into Hi range. I then took apart the shift housing, cleaned up the old gasket and sealed with the Ultra Grey sealant that Indy4x sends with the gears.
- Be careful of the 4wd actuator plugs. I broke the same one on BOTH transfer cases that I got.
- At some point, when manipulating the front wheel drive gears, the shift fork fell off and the collar slipped out, exposing these little filler gear things. They all fell out and I had to look at the spare case to figure out which way they go in. This is how they are oriented. You shouldn't have to deal with this at all, but if you do, here is the photo.


Overall, I'd put this process as somewhere around a 5-7 on a 1-10 scale of difficulty for DIY stuff. Where I'd rate a battery change as a 1, suspension lift and ball joint flip as a 4, and a diff drop and locker install as a 5.

Honestly, I haven't done a ton of vehicle stuff in my life, so I'm not the best judge. I don't have much experience, but in doing this I realized that I've got quite a lot of tools that make this easier (3-jaw puller, hydraulic press, etc).

I'm sure this could have been more thorough, and I feel like toward the end I got a little worn out and just wanted to finish and didn't take every possible photo. I hope this helps people in the future tackle this job. Enough people on here have done this that there should be help for anyone who attempts.

Bonus photo: The 41mm socket that I made, worked for turning this nut on, and torqueing it back on again.