Kristofer Jardine

Hello,
2003 2500 8.1 4x4 burb
Mu 2003 t-case sprung the common leak and died. Upon disassembly I found that the planetary gear had broken.

My question is that I can get my hands on a 2002 gm 246 for free parts and it may even be working.

I see in some notes online that there was a change from 2002-2003 in the np246. Can the 02 work? At least for the planetary gear?

Kristofer Jardine

update.

I picked up the 02 and as far as I can see externally it is all the same. The actuator it is different on the 03 but the bolt pattern is the same so I'll swap it. The splines match up perfect.

Hopefully this gets me back on the road.

The planetary gear in the 03 was what fell apart throwing shrapnel everywhere. the clutch pack also was in pieces throughout the casing as well as several bearings blew out. It was as bad as it could be upon internal inspection.

I got the 02 t-case for $75. So if this swap works then I got off way cheap and will rebuild the 03 slowly over time as a project.

Kristofer Jardine

Turns out the actuators are different. The 02 has more of a square rounded head head and the 03 has more of a star bit gear looking piece. Also it looks like the bolt pattern is slightly different.

Soooooo...I'm going to rip apart the 02 and see if I can scavenge the internals. Not sure exactly how i'm going to proceed until I get in there and see what is what.

If the bolt pattern actually works I'll try to see if I can just switch out the activating mechanism.