Pulled the transmission out on Tuesday night, and friend is in the process of replacing the old mainshaft with the new fully splined mainshaft. I had thought about just doing a temp fix, and see how long it would hold by tack welding the nut back in place. But, after getting the crossmember out, plus the transfer case, there was only 4 bolts holding the transmission in place, so we just pulled it on out. After we did that, I wanted to remove the tailhousing and see what the 5th gear nut had done... We had one H*LL of a time getting those little 12pt metric bolts out! found out they had used red loctite on them, had to almost bend my wrenchs beating on them with a hammer to break them lose..... We would NEVER have gotten them broken lose under the truck(if we just wanted to spot weld the nut back in place). . Finally got them out, pulled the housing, and the nut and 5th gear were just sitting on the end of the shaft, hadnt moved much, but enough the gear wasnt going to engage. Threads looked good, gear looked good, and slid right back into place. I was tempted to weld it at that time, but since I had the new main shaft, we decided to pull it apart. I helped(observed may be a better word) my friend take the gears off last night, had one heck of a time with one snap ring towards the end, but finally had everything disassymbled, and he was sliding the last gear on when I left last night. I didnt buy any sychronizers, but he looked them over and said they were not worn much at all. Tomorrow evening he will press out a couple of bearings and replace some bearings and seals, then Friday evening we will put it back together in the truck.
coadman