The hi-lo gear range sliding shift collar and the two gears they engage become wore and causes them to pop out of gear.
Usually the excessive wear on the sliding collar and the gears is caused from some ******* driving them in lock, on solid surfaces or not, and the drivetrain, through the T-case and driveshafts and axles comes under a bind, so, instead of putting them in reverse and backing up for ten or twenty feet to relieve the bind, they`ll hammer on the shifter or stomp on them with a boot to get them to disengage and it shears off the splines in the sliding collar and the gears.
Installing a set of manual hubs onto a full time 4X4 pickup with a 203 T-case is a real big thing to NOT!!!! do.
Inside the T-case, there is a set of spider gears, much like what is in a differential, is what happens is the drive shafts will then rotate at different speed {front output and rear output} and cause the spider gears to rotate at speeds that they were not designed to turn at, it will tear up the conical thrust washers and the X shaft.
If You do not know if the T-case has had a part time kit installed then I would be running the manual hubs in lock position.
I do`nt know if there is any way to tell if it has a part time kit installed in the T-case without a tear down.
I did convert My shifter to a twin stick because there was some parts missing.
Someone in the forum may have a singel stick shifter if You put out a call for one in the WTB thread of the classifieds.
I have one that I got from a member in the forum that I might be using, it is packed away in the shed and`d prolly take a couple of days of scrounging to find it. I`m terrible at labeling boxes and such.
