Nightmare in the making? Needless to say about 2 years ago was driving and blew a rear u joint drive shaft dropped and took out the tail housing. Replaced the tail housing and sealed it with black rtv. Never checked the fluids as I knew nothing about trucks. About a week ago I checked the tcase when I lubed the ball joints and rear ujoints. Not a drop of oil. Never saw a drop in the ground when the tail housing broke off originally or anytime after that I could recall so I threw in a quart of atf4. I know the truck makes a thumping noise when you shift between park reverse and drive... I guess what I'm trying to ask is is it worth it to pull and rebuild? Or pull one from a junkyard? I have used 4wd multiple times in the last 2 years. And it's a fight getting the tcase to shift out of 2wd
Chrysler says this is the tranny and tcase from factory
DGTS 4-Spd. Automatic 46RE Transmission
DHAP Lock-Up Torque Converter
DHKS Shift-on-the-Fly,231HD Transfer Case

 

Were it mine, I'd use 4HI as often as is safely possible for a while. When the transfer case shifter isn't used much, it gets sticky -- mine was heavy as a dead preacher until I started using it more, and now it feels just like it ought to.

If you end up needing to replace parts, you're better off rebuilding unless you need a new case. Be sure to stuff a transfer case saver in there to prevent that exciting failure.

 

Well I found the trick to shifting it easily... ( let it roll in reverse a foot than neutral and it falls right into 4wd) but that's not the point. There is a nice clunk when you shift from drive and reverse and there was no oil in the tcase. So I guess even a simpler question would be what would be better? A rebuild or used case. What's cheaper and more cost effective? And what kit if rebuild is a good idea

 

That kinda defeats the whole purpose of having a shift-on-the-fly transfer case, but I don't suppose you see much need for on-the-fly down there in the land of cockroaches and alligators.

The two symptoms are most likely completely unrelated. Clunking on driveline direction change is usually, almost always, either almost gone U-joints or ring & pinion slop.

A rebuild kit for a couple or three hundred bucks would be cheaper than any used case worth having unless your scrounging skills are truly exceptional. A refresher kit containing just gaskets, o-rings, and seals can be had for less than fifty bucks, so if no hard parts are sloppy you can be in and out for cheap. But you may not need either -- a 231 that's not asked to work hard can go a darn long way with little or no oil in it, though it's not a recommended practice.

Try this: elevate the rear wheels safely, and with the parking brake off, automatic transmission in Park or manual transmission in first or reverse, transfer case in 2HI, get a helper to rock a rear wheel forward and back while you crawl around with a stethoscope to find the clunker. It's a bit tricky because all of those heavy metal parts conduct sound very readily, but I'll bet that it's quietest at the transfer case and loudest at the differential.

 

I changed both rear ujoints about 2 1/2 years ago. I just greased the ujoints and checked for slop. So you think the tcase might be ok? The truck never really gets horsed around. Just the occasional 4wd through sand to keep things moving. Nothing ever feels like it's binding. You think the clunk could be the rear diff. Well the truck has 150,000 and the previous owner had the pinion nut come loose and had that fixed

 

I concur with all that UnregisteredUser put up.

As for the clunk going into reverse, that is pretty normal. Of course, it's a shot in the dark what each person thinks is a clunk, thud, tick, tack, slap, etc. It shouldn't feel like the truck is getting rattled by it.

 

Might be and likely is okay, yep.

Yep. The only way to know is to crawl under there and isolate the sound, which I recommend doing. That said, chain drive transfer cases are rarely responsible for the symptom of clunking on direction change -- quieting the box is the whole reason for chain drive in the first place.

As far as the transfer case goes, if it were mine I'd just keep an eye on the oil level for a while and not worry about it unless it drops quickly or develops troubling symptoms. If it drops quickly, then the important thing to keep in mind is that if it ain't coming out, it's going in. Either way it's usually just a cheap refresher kit kind of fix, but if there are a quarter million or more miles on it then the rebuild kit makes better sense. "While you're in there anyway".

Install a transfer case saver no matter what. But get it from the idiots' ebay store for ten bucks less. Or anywhere else you can get the thing cheaper, as long as it's the real deal. The bang an NP231 makes when the output shaft snap ring fails is that of the case violently shattering, so fifty bucks and an hour of your time provide some of the cheapest insurance you're going to get in this lifetime.