off-roader
Expedition Leader
Like money in my pocket my recently purchased 3.15:1 Transfer Case Gears were proverbially burning a hole in my room.
So with Carlos' (CAP510) help we began the swap this past Saturday. Fortunately he still had a spare transfer case from when we swapped his gears a couple of years ago.
While cleaning it up as best we could (a shop vac and heavy brush are great for doing this) we also found a plug separating the housings had a strange non-uniform hole it in.
After carefully reviewing the pictures I took of Carlos' swap, we were able to determine his also had this same opening so I suspect although not a uniform/straight cut it is this way from the factory.
We then proceeded to disassemble the necessary parts. Below I'm taking pics of the servo's/position senders for the 4WD system so I can put them back properly after the install. You can also see that I've already taken the end cap off so the shifter shaft/linkage can be pushed out to allow the shift forks to be removed so we can remove the gears.
Below I've pushed out the cotter pin that holds the shift fork in place, removed the 4 position senders and pushed the shift rod out the back of the transfer case so I could remove the shift fork so that the gears on the other side can be removed.
(Note: The 2 senders that are farthest away in the pic the left side did not need to be removed. We forgot and removed them anyway.)
Below you can see the 1 shift linkage and the rod for the 2nd shift linkage pushed to the left into the housing so that the shift linkage that was attached to it could be removed. You can also see the large opening just above the gearset that you'll need to grind down so that the new gears will clear it.
Below is another view of the area from the Transmission side point of view with the hole that needs to be ground down at the 12 O'Clock position to the gear. Also notice the Dremel Buffing Wheel and Carlos' spare radio antenna that we inserted into that hole to prevent aluminum shavings from falling into the back gear compartment. The plan was that the Antenna would allow us to pull the buffing wheel back out. We just had to be careful while grinding the opening down that we didn't accidentally cut the antenna.
Now all those bearings will also need to be taped up to prevent aluminum shavings from entering.
Another pic below of the holes & bearings now taped up and the shop vac in place prevent contamination from the aluminum shavings.
And below the are the results from the 1st cut.
We used a 1/16" thick cutting wheel on a 4" die grinder.
Below you can see we've now switched to the Dremel with a standard cutting wheel. Some of you may not realize this but aluminum can easily be cut with standard wood working tools which for this mod is a really good thing.
Actually that cutting wheel is also good for cutting steel as you can see in the antenna below.
Since we now only needed to refine the bottom half of the hole, we switched to using baling wire instead of that antenna.
And below is the finished result showing the clearance with the new larger gear in place.
Stay tuned for part II (coming to your screen in June
) when I transfer the OE bearings from the original gears to the replacement gears and install them into the housing.
So with Carlos' (CAP510) help we began the swap this past Saturday. Fortunately he still had a spare transfer case from when we swapped his gears a couple of years ago.
While cleaning it up as best we could (a shop vac and heavy brush are great for doing this) we also found a plug separating the housings had a strange non-uniform hole it in.
After carefully reviewing the pictures I took of Carlos' swap, we were able to determine his also had this same opening so I suspect although not a uniform/straight cut it is this way from the factory.
We then proceeded to disassemble the necessary parts. Below I'm taking pics of the servo's/position senders for the 4WD system so I can put them back properly after the install. You can also see that I've already taken the end cap off so the shifter shaft/linkage can be pushed out to allow the shift forks to be removed so we can remove the gears.
Below I've pushed out the cotter pin that holds the shift fork in place, removed the 4 position senders and pushed the shift rod out the back of the transfer case so I could remove the shift fork so that the gears on the other side can be removed.
(Note: The 2 senders that are farthest away in the pic the left side did not need to be removed. We forgot and removed them anyway.)
Below you can see the 1 shift linkage and the rod for the 2nd shift linkage pushed to the left into the housing so that the shift linkage that was attached to it could be removed. You can also see the large opening just above the gearset that you'll need to grind down so that the new gears will clear it.
Below is another view of the area from the Transmission side point of view with the hole that needs to be ground down at the 12 O'Clock position to the gear. Also notice the Dremel Buffing Wheel and Carlos' spare radio antenna that we inserted into that hole to prevent aluminum shavings from falling into the back gear compartment. The plan was that the Antenna would allow us to pull the buffing wheel back out. We just had to be careful while grinding the opening down that we didn't accidentally cut the antenna.
Now all those bearings will also need to be taped up to prevent aluminum shavings from entering.
Another pic below of the holes & bearings now taped up and the shop vac in place prevent contamination from the aluminum shavings.
And below the are the results from the 1st cut.
Below you can see we've now switched to the Dremel with a standard cutting wheel. Some of you may not realize this but aluminum can easily be cut with standard wood working tools which for this mod is a really good thing.
Actually that cutting wheel is also good for cutting steel as you can see in the antenna below.
Since we now only needed to refine the bottom half of the hole, we switched to using baling wire instead of that antenna.
And below is the finished result showing the clearance with the new larger gear in place.
Stay tuned for part II (coming to your screen in June
