His front axle doesnt have vacuum disconnect they used from 84 to 90 equipped with the 231 case after that they did away with it

 

Easy way to check out your front end is to pull the pan and see if there's a scrap yard sitting in the bottom of your diff.

 

If I pull the pan I'm gonna have to top off the fluid right? Or would I be better off flushing it while I'm at it? If there is a ''scrap yard'' what are my options?

 

You are gonna lose 100% of your fluid pulling the pan off. I'd hit up the salvage yard and look for a auto 4.0 liter. Good thing is they never changed front axles throughout the years so they're all interchangeable

 

What's the best fluid for the d 30 with 212k on it?

Also, I'm assuming I can pull internals and swap?

 

Regular old 80-90w works for me. It would be easier to do internals swaps if you have the know how to do so and know for sure what the problem is. You might just find the the drive pin fell out or than you snapped an axle. Easy enough fix but then again your ring gear could be completely knocked out.

 

On a scale of 1-10 (wrenches of course) what would be the difficulty of this for somebody who's mechanically inclined but just doesn't have the know how? Also if there's any good write ups that you know of would help (I can't search from my phone) would be awesome. How do I figure out if the axle is broken? I was told by the po that the previous owner to him drove it like he stole it supposedly.

Sorry for noob questions, I'm still learning and axles are something I've learned the least about.

 

Get that pan off and watch the spider gears as you spin each front tire, that's assuming your steering knuckle isn't grenaded but you can see that by just squatting down in front of your jeep. I don't look at many write ups on this topic but it's pretty straight forward if you're mechanically inclined. I'd get that pan off and take pics/videos if I were you and post them on here

 

remove front drive shaft ,transfercase front yoke should spin in 2wd shift to 4h and 4low it should be locked,if it spins transfer case issue if its locked front axle issue

 

Will try all this tomorrow. Ill try to get video if I can't figure something substantial out.

 

Front ds spins when I rotate both front tires by hand in all drive modes (2w 4h and 4l). Put all 4 meats in the air and tried 4 high and low and got no power to fronts so obviously tc issue. Only thing I find odd is that in 2 high I can hear the front ds clicking/popping a bit when I first place it in gear which I thought was the tc engaging the ds. Also in 4 low I get rear gear reduction but no front wheel power. I'm thinking my best bet is to just get a jy tc because a rebuild Kit is too much for me. How do I figure out what spline tc I need?

 

So if you turn the front DS by hand, one or both of the front wheels spin? 92 up should all have the right spline for your Jeep. They're cheap enough around here. I'd get a 14mm box end wrench and cut it in half if I was to pull one still in the Jeep

 

Both wheels spin when turning by hand and I can turn by hand in all 3 modes. Does the TC have to be from an auto or can it be from a manual?

 

when you did this what happened

 

There's 3 different output shaft lengths for the 5 speed so I wouldn't try to figure that mess out. Not to mention the sy doesn't ever have a lot of standard jeeps sitting around very often. You could bust the case open and see if the chain is broke if you're up for the challenge