They must have had tiny gremlins operating their wrenches then, in order to get to the various bolts on the top of the case.
And they must have worked out some phasic mechanism to allow the t-case to pass through the chassis cross-member. The chassis bar is directly underneath the t-case, and there's not enough room to move the case back far enough to drop it.
You could probably get away without dropping the exhaust, but it would make it really hard to get to the mounts for the transmission/t-case. The exhaust is the simplest of these three things to deal with though.

Of course they removed the rear driveshaft -- both driveshafts are connected to the transfer case.


I dropped three transfer cases this past summer.

 

You're just doing it the hard way








Doing it yourself

 

Thanks, all. I've now gotten two quotes right around $2,400 to remove, rebuild, and re-install. Does this sound reasonable?

 

If you're only dealing with a leak and it's not the shaft seal, it's going to be far cheaper and easier to just remove the side plate and re-seal it. There aren't any "case halves." Leaks from around the plate are pretty common.

 

Also, your inability to move the range lever could be as simple as the cable being seized. I understand that this happens fairly often on the 2004 trucks.
Are you able to engage the transfer case lock?

 

mollusc: I can force the lever to 4 low and move it over to engage the CDL but then getting it back into 4 high is challenging (and even has a bit of a gear-grinding sound to it). I'd love to be able to repair without dropping the transfer case as the leak isn't THAT bad. Can the cable be serviced from above (in the cabin)?

 

That quote sounds like Dealership prices... Hopefully you are in an area where you can check a few more shops... Land Rover specific ideally.

 

You can service it from underneath:

• Get under the passenger side facing rearward at about the mid point of the passenger front door
• Look up and left you will see the cable mechanism
• Get a can of chain lubricant or good penetrating oil with a long straw
• Spray up there
• Then start your Disco
• Run through the gears
• Into neutral - wait a few seconds
• Into reverse you will feel the engagement
• back in to neutral and shift to low - these 3 steps unload the transfer case gears
• Drive a 100 metres or so
• Into neutral - wait a few seconds
• Into reverse you will feel the engagement
• back in to neutral and shift to low - these 3 steps unload the transfer case gears
• back to hi
• 3 or 4 times of gear engagement and disengagement this should loosen things up

 

Are you shifting it with the vehicle moving, best to get it rolling about 3 mph, shift the transmission in to neutral, then shift the transfer case. Could be a stiff cable but surprisingly lots of folks do not know you need to be rolling.

 

Thanks, Richard. I'll give that a try and it may save the day!