I had the driveshaft come off of my 96 Dakota. I had changed the u joints and a couple of days later one of the bolts that holds the rear u joint to the yoke had it's head break off. My son was driving but it sounds like thing went to hell pretty quick. Besides needing a new driveshaft the output shaft of the transfer case broke clean off.

I am going to get new, read used, parts and I want to know how tough it is to change the chain in the transfer case. I will also replace the front and rear seals.

Thanks

The chain can be replaced with only removing the rear half of the case. No need to unbolt it from the trans. A good pair of snap ring pliers and common hand tools are all thats required.

My bad. You can still change the rear output shaft in the case with just pulling the rear case half off. It pulls right out once the rear is taken off. It may be cheaper just to find a whole other transfer case though. Call Zumbrota bearing and gear for a good deal on the parts. They will be way cheaper than Napa. They should have everthing you need to fix yours. www.zbag.com

Thanks Jason. I had no idea it would be a simple swap for the rear shaft. I will probably be using a place up in Mt. Olive, IL called Mullins. I will just replace the xfer case since it's hard to tell what else might be wrong if there was enough force to rip off the shaft.

Since I first posted I realized that the chain in my current case is supposed to be new. I had it replaced when I had the transmission rebuilt.

Thanks