It's been a hard week for the car. It started with a noise in the back that's been getting progressively louder. I put new wheel bearings in the back in the fall, so I was hoping it wasn't them. Well, it is. The rear left bearing has some play in it, so I'm swapping the part out under warrantee.

 

I now have a "removable silencer" for a muffler because of some snowbanks I was plowing the car over. It's kinda back together, but It's not the quietest.

 

My latest problem: the plate that the shift lever pivots on sheared in half. It appears to have busted right about where the 4wd shift lever anchors, and so now the shifter can move separately from the body. People who complain about having a vauge shifter, they aint seen nothing yet! I have to pull up on the shifter to change gears, otherwise the linkages underneath rub on the driveshaft's U-joint. 4wd is touch and go, it takes a combonation of both shift levers to engage or disengage 4wd.

 

It still hauls me to school and back, 60 miles round trip.

I had the same shifter problem. I just pulled it all out and welded it back toghether. I drilled and tapped the plate that the rubber bushing was attached to. Used a big M10 nut as a spacer and ran a bolt through the body, through spacer into that plate. The plate I'm talkin about is at the back end of shifter assembly, that holds the rear of the mechanism to the body.