I have a 96 4WD club cab that I bought with the transmission and transfer case sitting in the bed. Typical "ALL parts are there and come with the truck to reinstall" umm, no.
i over hauled the transmission myself including a new (reman) converter and a transgo shift kit. And now have it bolted back in.
i have come up with plenty of nuts and bolts to put it back in, but I am still missing 1 piece that I absolutely gotta have to finish.
On the shift linkage, for the bell crank, I am missing the stand off bracket that holds it at the transmission side. The rod comes to this from the column and another rod connects from here to the transmission. Can I get this off of some other dodge or does it have to be from a 4WD gen 1 Dakota only?

 

If it's the ushaped bracket with the hole in it for the bushing at the end of the rod that mounts to the frame, I have an extra I think. My 90 and 95 both use it, and the 94 and 89 I robbed parts from had them. But they were all 2WD. But I don't think it changed to 4wd.

 

Rereading your message, it sounds like you need the tranny side? Here's a picture of my linkage (minus the bushings). What part do you need?

 

yeah I need the tranny side, the frame side is there. I called the guy I bought the truck from last nite, he said "he swore" it was in the bed or inside the cab. No, all that was in the cab was the transfer case shifter, again no bolts.... he's supposed to look in his garage and call me back, but I'm not holding my breath on getting that call.
I have a good junkyard 5 or 6 miles from me, I bought the truck 50 miles away via CL.
Only problem is that the local yard pulls all wheels and tires and every vehicle out there is sitting on its belly. That means no climbing underneath them, only shot I have is finding one missing an engine out there. I got some really nice fenders out of that yard a week and 1/2 ago, I need to go back and get the doors off of the same truck.
There are a couple of Upulls north of me, a coin flip as to going there or going back to the guy who I bought this truck from, time and distance wise.
I tend towards the junkyard though because I always find other things that I need that I forgot about til I see it out there..... they have 40% off on and around holidays, I got what looked like a very freshly overhauled tranny with a new looking converter over Black friday weekend, that tranny is a spare for the wife's '01 Durango, a reman converter cost more than I paid for that trans.

 

we had some yards like that. you can do 1 of 2 things...

Grab some buddies, gather some wheels and pipes and lift a side then block it up with the wheels OR
ask the yard to send a dozer over to lift it for you. Ive asked all the yards at one time or another and they will happily send a guy to you and lift it or set it up for you to get under it.

 

I have been buying from this yard for years and have done just what you suggest but for such a small and trivial (to them anyway) part I dunno if theyd oblige.

I may have a solution that I was betting against. Yesterday, I called the guy who sold me the truck, and asked him to look in the garage and see if he could find it, and I really expected to never hear back again, but he called me a few minutes ago to tell me that he did find a coffee can full of bolts and nuts and what sounds like the missing piece of linkage, so being that he's 50 miles away and i've already made 2 trips out there (once to look at the truck and another with a truck and trailer to pick it up) I'm hoping that I can get him to meet me part way....

 

So did you get the stuff? And did it include the bracket? In the future, if it comes up like this, ask him to get a priority mail flat rate box and then pay him back the charge for postage.

 

yeah he did
he did offer to mail it but I wanted all of the right hardware too, which he had in coffee can, until I personally went back he wasn't too interested in looking for that, he was gonna send me "just" the linkage piece if I'd have said that mail was OK. at least gas is still cheaper than a couple of years ago.....

 

Im past that point now, took it for a ride to find out that the rear end had a clunk and was noisey at highway speed but could not tell it unless I was on smooth pavement, on gravel I really couldn't hear it, so now it's back in the garage up on the lift while I replace the pinion bearings and crush sleeve and tighten things up back there. good excuse to put the new Traklok "posi" unit to use that's been collecting dust in my garage for a while.... gears look great, no scoring.
this is my 6th one of these trucks but 1st 4wd and 1st with 3.91s. IDK if it's the gear or the conventional steering system (my 2wds are/were all rack n pinion) or the torsion bar suspension but this truck overall has a completely different feel to it.