So the tcase on my 98 had been leaking since I bought the truck and I guess I ended up driving it dry for a bit too long causing the chain to get pretty loose and start rattling. After finding out that reman units are near $1000, I decided to check the local junkyard and see about getting one rebuilt myself.

I ended up finding a 98 Dakota with a v8 and auto transmission and pulled the tcase off it for $70.

My truck is a v6 with the ax15 manual transmission. They both use the 23 spline input but have different output ends (I'm guessing they put the bigger spline output on the v8s)

so the question is, can I swap the output end of my current tcase which has the 27 spline output onto the tcase I pulled that has a 32 spline output?
Or should I just get a 32 spline yoke and use it instead?

 

here are some pics if they help:

This is the output section on the tcase still on my truck

as you can see, its leaking out of the seal between the rear half of the case and the first output section, and where the output yoke connects at the back (flinging fluid all over everything else). The tag is missing from this Tcase

This is the output section of the tcase i pulled off the junkyard truck:

Whats odd is that the list for Tcases for make/model only shows NP231D for 96-98 dakota, but this tcase tag says 231D HD. The list does list the HD as being on a few durango's but not any dakotas

 

Are you positive the output on the "new" case is 32-spline? Mine was a V8 with an NV3500 and the TC output shaft was 27-spline.

 

I counted them it's 32. The yoke shaft has a larger diameter. It looks like I'm just going to have to use the yoke that's on it. Driveshaft is the same so there shouldn't be any clearance issues