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231J transfer case

3K views 12 replies 6 participants last post by  Mickey_D 
#1 ·
Hi i am new to the board.
I have a 1995 jeep grand Cherokee 4.0l auto with command trac 4wd. My transfer case does not engage when need just slips and grinds. I found another 231 J transfer case and it is from a 99 and the only difference i notice is that is has a rubbe boot covering the out put shaft for the rear drive shaft. and mine has a housing. are these cases the same and just need a different shaft? if you could point me in the right direction or give me some advice it would be greatly appreicated.
 
#2 ·
I am not a WJ guy, but I was pretty sure about this one, so I checked rockauto.com, and sure enough, the 231 was not offered on the 99: only the 242 and the 247. This information and my gut could be wrong, but I doubt it.

Maybe the PO of the 99 put a 231 on it? Maybe you are mistaken about it being a 231?

It looks like the 242 came with a boot on the rear output shaft. From what I can find, that is ok. The '99 242 has a 27 spline slip yoke rear output, and the '95 231 is the same.

As far as the input shaft length though, nobody can tell for sure! It is all about luck there.
 
#4 ·
He doesn't have a WJ though. He just thought he had found a 231 on a '99 WJ.

In my opinion, I would search local junkyards, the classified section of this forum, and car-part.com for the best deal on a 231. The advantage to junkyards is that you may be able to choose a different case if it has the wrong input shaft length. Of course, that requires that you remove you TC to measure first (moderately easy).
 
#6 ·
It's possible that we're looking at a case from a 99 Cherokee - common misconception.

Does the seller have a pic of the case? That would be helpful.
 
#7 ·
no the seller doesnt have any pictures. put i looked at in person and the tag on it matches up to mine same gear ratio and same tag. My question is if i but it what do i need to make it work? seeing mine has the tail shaft housing and this one has just the rubber boot.
 
#8 ·
You would need driveshaft modification since you see a boot instead of a housing there. You could also have issues with the input shaft being the wrong length. With yours being a 95, you'd need to flip a 3-sided coin to know what length you have.

If it came from a 99 Grand Cherokee, you're looking at a no-go since WJs get their speed from the ABS tone rings, where ZJs get their speed from the transfer case.

This has been discussed a lot here - I'd recommend searching for transfer case swap threads for more info.
 
#10 ·
Driveshaft modification will still be necessary, pretty sure the speedo is correct on that.

but...as I said. You need to know the input shaft length. You won't know yours until you drop the case.
 
#12 ·
no driveshaft mods, and being from a cherokee it still has the same speedo pinion gear set up as the zj.

there's really no difference between the internal and external slip tcases where the driveshaft is concerned.

you may need to swap the input shafts and will most likely have to swap over your vehicle speed sensor.
 
#13 ·
There's another thread within the last few days asking pretty much the exact same thing. 93-95 there were three different input shaft lengths on the 249 transfer case. And it seems that here was no rhyme or reason as to which Jeep got which one. Mid-95 they also went to a different viscous coupler in the 249 for the 96-98.

As I said in the previous thread, you could have 5 identical Jeeps and 5 identical transfer cases. It's a complete toss up as to whether all 5 would be bolt in PnP or whether all 5 would need to have the transfer cases torn apart to use the input shafts from the 249.

So I guess the short answer to your last question is "no".

It honestly isn't that hard to drop the transfer case to measure the input shaft length (unless you live in a Nazi apartment complex like mine). There's a few bolts you can undo to shift the transfer case far enough to do the measurement, but it's kind of a pain to get in there accurately enough.

I feel for ya. I really do. I've got to replace mine soon and I'm dreading doing it in the wrecking yard lot just so I know what length the input shaft is on mine. And then the prospect of having to put it right back in again because that wrecking yard doesn't have the correct one...
 
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