Hi toofaroffroad,

Would you happen to have the plans for how you created the lever? Maybe a picture too?

I have been wanting to do this on my 2000 DII SD.

 

Just a word of advice before you go building the lever: Think about what Disco Mike said about not shutting the truck off with the CDL locked or the 3 Amigos will come on...

The lever is easy and cheap, and may be fine if you don't ever go offroad much. If you do go wheeling though, the implications of what Mike was trying to say is that the lever can quickly become a PITA.

You'll find that leaving your truck running all the time may not be feasible, and having to climb out, yank the lever, move the truck (if the light doesn't shut off right away), turn the truck off, then re-engage it again later after restarting will get old REALLY fast...especially if you live someplace muddy...

Getting a Transfer Case shifter from a D1 really isn't all that much more expensive or tougher to install in the long run if you foresee getting off the pavement with any regularity. My advice would be to do a D1 shifter, do it right, and only have to do it once.

 

Hey Hey, lets get back me my problems, this is all about me...LOL.

Disco Mike, you could be right about the drive shaft. I do greese it...or at least I have within the last year. I do check the drive shaft regularly also. It has been rebuilt in it's lifetime.

I guess my point was that this noise startied immediatly after I enguaged the CDL for the first time. No noise at all before that.

 

The CDL being activated should not generate any new noises.
As for the lever, one down side to a lever, in my opinion is, if you get stuck and or it is wet, raining, muddy and or snowing, I sure wouldn't want to crawl under the truck to engage/disengage it.

 

Thanks Mike, i'll just drive it and see what happens. It is still making the sqeeky noise. very strange.

 

Just for the sake of closing up this thread, I climbed under my truck today ready to do a thorough inspection. Jacked one front and one rear tire, started it up and put it in neutral with CDL on. Within two seconds of spinning the front drive shaft I saw one of the rear u-joints cracked in some pretty big pieces.
So, case closed problem solved.
I think it was very strange that this happened immediatly after I enguaged the CDL for the 1st time. My guess is that it was about to go anyway and the CDL, just helped it out a bit. I'll be replacing this week.
Yes I'll be buying one with all greasable joints.

Thanks for everyone help. now I can get back to dealing with:
alternator
drag-link
coolant leak