Speaking from experience here, a dremel won’t make this job any easier. Especially a cordless one. If you can borrow a grinder it’s the way to go. I tried a corded dremel as well, went through an entire pack of the dremel grinder wheels on the first one and got nowhere. Borrowed a grinder and it took 5 minutes to go through all of them.

 

Another thing, the plate that is riveted to the trans tunnel is actually on the inside of the tunnel. So it’s not like you just get through the rivets and the plate is free. Once the rivets are off the plate has to be angled and pulled through the trans tunnel. That combined with the lack of space at the forward most part of the plate AND that you can’t get under the plate to pry it up will make your method way more difficult than just getting a grinder and zipping the rivets off. I am sure there is an 16V + grinder floating around that you can get a hold of.

Again just trying to same you some time and frustration.

 

I defer to the voice of experience.

 

Well. The chisel made short work of the rivets. No issue there. I managed to get the actual shift lever and the cable to the cdl. But no more.
Was not able to get the bracket off the CDL 1 bolt head stripped and I was limited on time. And the hi low cable is still in the truck. Broke several tools tring to get the bolts on the bracket to break loose.
Will my hi low cable work with this? Do i even need this part?

And the plate the cdl shifter bolts to I am ok to use my old one if i cut the hole out bigger to allow sideways movement right?

Being this ended up being in a junk yard i got all i could before the vultures hit it. Will be going back for round 2 tomorrow to at least get the bracket off the cdl hopefully

Man what a spacious work environment it is down in there...

 

You will definitely need that bracket, and yes you can use your old shifter plate. Glad the chisel worked for you.

 

I know the cdl bracket is much needed.
Any idea if the original hi low cable/bracket from a non cdl shifter will work in a cdl shifter? In other words are they any different?
Would be nice to not deal with the stubborn tool breaking one i couldn't get free.

Sorry tons of questions.

 

The hi-lo cable you already have in your truck is all you need. And if you can't get the bracket that bolts to the top of the transfer case at the nipple it's not terribly difficult to fabricate one. But if you can somehow get it out tomorrow with a bolt extractor it would make installing the new one a lot easier.

 

Sweet. Good news on the hi low cable.
I have faith i can get the stripped bolt out, its just the head rounded. Didnt have a extractor set with me at the time. Going back armed with a torch and a extractor socket set

 

Got the bracket. Extractor socket worked its magic on the rounded bolt head. Grabbed the Slabs unit also.
Now to firgure out what has to be done to use the new slabs and swap it all into my truck.

 

Congratulations! What is the model number of the SLABS? The SLABS is plug and play. The only two things I can think of that would affect it being ready for your truck are whether or not the donor truck had air suspension and whether or not the donor truck had the Three Amigos on when it went to the boneyard. Both conditions can be addressed with an appropriate scan tool.