Need help on Dana 18 transfer case

[jwestervelt]

Hey folks, this is my first post and I am relatively new to the Jeep scene, so please be gentle.

I acquired my first Jeep, a 1965 CJ5 , last Friday. There have been quite a few modifications done to this Jeep by the previous owners, but it does seem to run quite nicely.

The only major thing that I noticed was a pronounced knocking while decelerating; it sounds like some heavy metal pieces knocking together, and it goes away the moment I begin accelerating. The knocking if proportional to the tire rotation speed, and it happens even when out of gear. My suspicion was the rear U-joints since the sound is coming from the rear and the front axle is not engaged within the Transfer Case .

While underneath the vehicle, I noticed that 3 of the nuts that hold the yoke flange to the parking brake drum on the Transfer Case were loose. I torqued two of them back up to spec, but the last nut is proving to be troublesome. It appears as if the whole bolt is loose and thus I cannot back the nut out or tighten it. I assume from the drawings that the bolt head is on the inside face of the brake drum, but I don't see how to secure the bolt to adjust the nut.

 

[jwestervelt]

I managed to lock the bolt from spinning, just enough to remove the nut. Unfortunately I cannot lock the bolt to tighten the nut down properly. I managed to pull the driveshaft though and have replaced the U-joint on the differential side. The transfer-case side u-join was fine.

My guess is that I will have to pull the drum off the Transfer Case now to see what the heck is going on with that one bolt. The nut securing the drum does not have a cotter pin on my unit. Most of the diagrams show a cotter-pin securing this nut. :/