As reported earlier, my transmission was whining and starting to shift hard ( crunching ) especially when cold, so I thought that I may have a bad bearing / bushing, chipped gear etc.. As I was tearing everything down for a complete rebuild anyway, I decided to address the transmission. I was scared of what I would find because where would I ever get parts if needed. Long story short, all I found was the rear vacuum servo linkage was frozen and the transfer case was in permanent FWD - turning the front shaft, but not actually in FWD as the front servo had not locked the diff. I tore it all down anyway, just to be sure, and everything internal is like new. Not even any swarf inside the cases, so I am hoping that the frozen linkage was the only problem. So, the morel of the story is to keep these linkages lubed and free so they can do their job easily.
