Well this evening was a 180 deg learing curve. Swapped in a 15T pinion. Pretty much needed to pull the whole top off this thing to remove the center diff case/ motor chassis mount. Was hoping to just remove the motors fasteners and pull the motor but I didn't have a hex key that could access the lower bolt. Between the high chassis tray, the Receiver box, and the center bracing I was unable to access the lower bolt with a key and still be able to twist the screw out.
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Plan B. Slide the center diff up... eeeeeh maybe. It's still pretty tight. The tower braces and the F/R out drive cups kinda make this difficult so I removed the two C-diff/motor mount chassis screws and out it came.
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Well now that I have all this out anyway, I might as well service the center diff. It was at least packed with grease, and more than enough to prevent damage. Good build quality TC!

I lubed the diff with 100k silicone, closed it back up, and swapped out the pinion to a 15T I had that was in decent shape.
I Locktited all the relevant fasteners ( previously done by TC) and buttoned her back up. ***TC slipped in a tiny piece of tubing into the rear outdrive cup in the center diff.*** Its in a pic below right above the rear dogbone.
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Here's the completed job with the C-diff shield off and 15T pinion.
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I removed all 4 body posts from the towers so I could access the center chassis brace hardware at the top of the towers. There may be a simpler way, but I couldn't see one worthwhile. I did discover the center braces slip apart, so you may be able to just remove the central tower screw and pull them off the tower mounts... (I didn't try)
All in all a simple job made complicated by limited access to the motor mount screws. Looks like I may need to update my small tool inventory. If I had a short bit driver I probably could've just pulled the pinion off in a few min. I wanted to service these diffs anyway, so it was a successful job IMO. 1 down, 2 diffs to go.
In this pic here I'm pointing at a tweaked shock tower. Just noticed it for the 1st time. I think my first run of this thing was when this happened.
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Here's the body damage in this spot from that day last week.
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