If the op has a five speed he won't be able to remove the transmission coupler or output shaft. That's unique to the automatic transmission.

 

News to me, thank you.
OP, sorry for the misinformation

 

No biggie. Unless you've taken these trucks apart, you'd have no way of knowing the coupler was unique to the automatic transmission. That coupler is the part that causes so many people problems when converting their RRC's from the Borg Warner to the LT230. On the early DI's ('94 and '95) the coupler was the same as the one on all the RRC's. The splines on the coupler were relatively short. The coupler found on '96-'99 DI automatics had a longer spline. So, when people tried to install LT230's from later DI's they were confronted with the inability to seat the transfer case on the coupler so it mated properly with the back of the transmission. I can't tell you how many of those couplers I've sold over the years to RRC owners.

 

After all the comments and suggestions I've got, all I can say is "thank you". I think I'll definitly go for the rebuild and now I'm sure the LT230 can come out on its own without disturbing any other items. Thank you folk !!

 

Intriguing. I've only fully torn apart the 98 D1 I have, plus miscellaneous parts of jy discos. The closest thing to that I had read about was the spline wear on that shaft causing issues. So that was something I made sure to inspect. So if the connector shaft of the trans box doesn't bolt to the output shaft of the man trans, doors the man trans just have an overall longer output shaft that's relatively shorter than the connector shaft? Hope that makes sense...

Re-reading your post I think I answered my own question. Longer man trans output shaft to shorter coupler means no bolt to secure, assumably due to less room for error/wiggle. Am I right?