a buddy of mine has a 96' 4x4 x-cab 5spd. dually with a round 230,000 miles, a couple weeks ago it started making a little noise in 5th gear, the previous owner had welded the nut on the shaft so we knew there was no point in even pulling the tranny & checking it w/out a replacement, so found a used tranny from a 95' that I've known since the truck was new, very little pulling done with the 95' & was never turned up, or hot rod'd, so it seemed like a suitable replacement, got the new tranny put in last night & it makes the exact same noise in 5th as it did before, we had a local mechanic who's done a lot of work on the NV4500's drive it before the swap & he said it sounded like a bearing in the tranny which is exactly what we had decided, but now that it's still doing it after the swap I'm not so sure, I checked the 5th gear nut on the new tranny & everything was perfect, good & tight & seemed to have never been off, now for the noise, it starts a little bit in 4th gear at low rpm's, but really gets out of hand when you shift into 5th, it's a grinding, clunking, rattling sound that's pretty dang loud!!!! but it goes away as soon as you push in the clutch & put the tranny in neutral, we're kinda thinking it may be in the transfer case now?????? I'd also mention that I know the transmission we put in it needs a tad bit of oil in it, it was out of a wreck & had leaked some oil out of the vent tube on top & I didn't have enough to fill it completely, he's gonna get oil first thing this a.m. & fill it up to start off, I know it's not been run long enough to hurt anything yet, we just drove it a couple miles after the install, but I've heard of alot of gear rattle coming from these 4500's when they're low on oil????? any ideas on what could be causing this problem?????? could the x-fer case cause these symptoms????? thanks in advance for the help, Dusty

 

Be a lot of chain stretch and wear at 230kmi - you'll need to pull the t\c and open it up

Chains are 'bout a hunnerd bucks, and the case goes back together with RTV

Way to check is put the trans in neutral, put the tc in 4wd, rock the front shaft back and forth - the greater the wear, the greater the rotation required to take up the slack.

Might even be able to hear the noise by turning the front shaft with the tc in neutral.

 

thanks that's kinda what we were thinking too, found a good one that the case is busted on, how hard would it be to swap out the chains????? thanks again, Dusty

 

Ya gotta pull it apart anyway to see - pull the broke one apart first, to learn on.

Then you won't break anything when you pull the good one apart