Transfer case oil seal - front prop shaft

[kiwi1973]

Can anyone share any tips for getting sufficient access to pull the front propshaft out of the transfer case?

Seems that Gen 2 owners had this easier, as reading old posts they had sufficient clearance to just undo the 4 yoke bolts to the front diff and then just pull the prop shaft out of the transfer case. On my Gen 4 there is not sufficient room. Looks like I will have to either (1) put a jack under the front diff for support and remove the cross member, or (2) remove a section of exhaust, or (3) possibly disassembling the U-Joint might give sufficient access.

If anyone has done this on a Gen 4 would love to know the approach taken.

[Alben]

Pretty sure you need to support the front crossmember on a jack, remove the 2 bolts on either side, lower the entire crossmember enough to clear the front drive shaft as you remove it.
Getting the bolts to line up with the crossmember when lifting it back up can be tricky also.
Went through this a couple months ago while removing the gearbox etc.
2 people working on it with levers and pin punches made it easier, one person is probably doable but awkward and difficult.
At the time i thought that it would be a very hard job to do if you needed to do it out bush.

Cheers
Ben

[kiwi1973]

Pretty sure you need to support the front crossmember on a jack, remove the 2 bolts on either side, lower the entire crossmember enough to clear the front drive shaft as you remove it.
Getting the bolts to line up with the crossmember when lifting it back up can be tricky also.
Went through this a couple months ago while removing the gearbox etc.
2 people working on it with levers and pin punches made it easier, one person is probably doable but awkward and difficult.
At the time i thought that it would be a very hard job to do if you needed to do it out bush.

Cheers
Ben

This looks to be spot on thanks Ben. I just went into the online workshop manual and in the 'propellor shaft' section it describes lowering the number 2 cross member and even has a picture. I had already looked in the workshop manual before putting up my original post and couldn't understand how I had missed those instructions. Turns out that I was on the model year 2013 page - and even though they're all Gen 4's and the method should be the same it seems there is a difference in the workshop manual. I'll give this a go when I have more time later in the week and see how I get on. I can see it may be tricky to realign the cross member bolts.

[kiwi1973]

I found time to finish this job today and wanted to leave a conclusion to this thread for any other Gen 4 owners who have to do this at some point. As thought, with the Gen 4 you just have to disconnect the front cross member and lower (complete with differential) on a trolley jack. Then there was sufficient forward clearance to get the front prop shaft out of the diff, but not in my case sufficient clearance to fully remove the prop shaft. This didn't matter, as I had enough room to work in there. It may make it sound like a bigger job saying that the front cross member had to be lowered, but didn't take long to do and was pretty easy. I had no issue realigning the bolt holes when I was done.