who here has rebuilt their np208?

[J10Mike]

i need to rebuild or replace my np208. just looking to find out how hard of a task it is to rebuild. or, should i just replace with a known good 208?

[J10Mike]

Nobody? With this crowd, I find that hard to believe. Anyway, I found a 208 locally out of an 82 cherokee. It's clean, doesn't leak and worked in all modes before being yanked from the parted cherokee. $100. I can live with that. I pick it up Wednesday afternoon.
Anyway, he knows the 208 fairly well. When I told him of the symptoms of my 208 not disengaging the front drive shaft when in 2wd, the first thing out of his mouth was "the pads on the shift fork are worn". when the pad is worn by as little as 1/32 of an inch, it will not shift back into 2wd even though the lobe looking lever clicks into 2wd. i'll keep the old 208 and eventually rebuild it. that will be a good project for next winter.

[grimgaunt]

just replace with a used unit. Simply replacing the shift forks is easy, but the entire rebuild of a chain driven NP case is tedious (not difficult, just tedious)

[dnixon]

I rebuilt it, well just replaced the chain and the gaskets/seals. It wasn't too hard you should be able to do it. Just be careful of the main shaft the gears that ride on it are seperated by 200ish needle bearings.. loosing them would be a bad thing...putting them back in is also a pain but can be done.. Heck i did it.. ;)
You can get aluminum shift fork pads to replace the plastic ones that are currently installed from factory. Good luck

http://www.dekonia.com/Images/junk/208.jpg

[dnixon]

Oh yeah if i remember correctly under #16 is where the needle bearings are...

[J10Mike]

thanks slo. i'll keep your illustration.