not much is beyond your mechanical knowledge as long as you have patience, common sense, and basic tools. just yesterday we dropped the tranny from a 92 s-10 with nothing but a hand box of tools 4 jack stands and a small canadian tire jack. not necessarily as fun as it could have been but most jobs are capable of being done with minimal tools. especially on anything pre-90's

 

If the 4wd doesn't work, which is very possible, is there some common problem on these transfer cases? I'm pretty sure it's the lever one not the push-button. Probably a dumb question, so please bear with me. And I really hope this doesn't make me sound dumber, but to put it in 4 high, does it have to be moving or in gear or anything?
Thanks again guys, I really appreciate your advice!

 

Manual tranny needs an alignement tool to replace the clutch. Otherwise its pretty easy.

aw crap I forgot your other question. now I have to edit my post.

More than likely the 4x4 problem is a bad vacuum hose or the vacuum actuator, both easy to fix. Look for a thread in DIY labeld 4x4 no worky or something like that. Like 12,000hits.

How far do you have to drive it?
IF not too far or too fast 3 lug nuts will hold the tire on, just be carefull of pot holes and the like.

 

It's about 120 miles away so I was going to look into maybe getting a dolly and towing it back with the transfer case in neutral if the studs were broken off one right next to another. That seems like it would put a lot of stress on the others for that distance

 

bah, they're really not that hard. i should know, i had the driveline outta my Jimmy 4......5.......maybe 6 times (don't ask. i was hard on her.)

you don't even need to seperate the t-case fro the trans to remove them.

it's tight-really tight-but doable. you just gotta know where to shove stuff.