T-case skid - front drive shaft access

Trying to diagnose a driveline squeak. Suspecting the front drive shaft, figured I'd pull it off and see if the squeak goes away.

Problem is, I have a JCR t-case skid on there. Dropping the skid is going to be more work than pulling the drive shaft. I can see and feel the back drive shaft bolts, not sure if I'll be able to get a good wrench on them.

Anybody have any experience in trying to pull the drive shaft with a t-case skid in place? Any tips, tool suggestions?

Don't be LAZY.. pull the skid and do the job right.

for a quick diagnosis pop the ujoint off the axle. Secure front shaft to upper control arm.

drive around block.
front shaft won't spin in 2wd. Obviously you shouldn't go highways speeds or anything like that, but it's how I diagnosed failing cardan joint in my wife's last month.

I have a 180* swiveling ratchet with a very small head that has helped me in situations like this, but I don't know if it would work with the JCR, I've never ****ed with one of those.

I'm going to go with post #2 of this thread

Ended up pulling the skid. Easy enough and all the nutserts seemed secure.

Probably could have gotten the drive shaft off with the skid in place, but doubt it would have saved any time. Only way I could get a good hold on the bolts was with the closed end of a wrench. The body of my ratcheting wrenches is too big and even standard sockets were too long. It would have been alot of small turns and wrench resets.

Drove it with the front DS off and it still squeaks. Good thing is that with the skid off it was easier to find the squeak. Turned out to be the rear double joint. I sprayed it down with cleaner and WD40 to diagnose. The squeak stopped.

I guess it's time to pull the rear shaft and clean and grease that joint up.

93gc40 said:

Don't be LAZY.. pull the skid and do the job right.

Click to expand...

Exactly!! Or later on down the road he will be doing it on a trail somewhere blocking traffic..........

I have the skid... No need to remove it to take out front shaft. Just remove pinion side first and put the case in neutral.

LOL, lazy? How about efficient? And self-tapping bolts aren't really supposed to go in and out multiple times.

I had the TnT skid and got the front shaft off and on numerous times. I always used a very low profile gearwrench ratcheting wrench and never had a problem. I couldn't ever really see anything, but could reach both my arms up around the skid, which was bigger than the JCR piece.