241 transfer case bolt size issues

[Jake]

Hello everyone. Longtime lurker new member and first-time poster.
Right to it. I have a 97 with a nv3500 and just had my cracked t-case rebuilt. I pulled it myself to save some money. I got it back Friday and tried installing it today (Saturday) but the 6 bolt holes that mate the t-case to the trans are too small for the 6 bolts that originally came out. Everything else seemed to fit and line up. I had some smaller bolts that fit and started to put it together but felt it left too much rotational play available with how sloppy lose the bolts were in the trans holes. Is that normal or do I need to take it back and have it re-done?
Thanks in advance for any responses.

 

[magimerlin]

If the original bolts no longer fit then something is wrong.... being it back to them and have them fix it right...

sent from what use to be a great country...

 

[burnhedge]

Sounds like they replaced your casing with a dodge or something. All the gm 241's I've dealt with had the same size holes.
I'd take it back, but if you absolutely can't wait you could make some bushings to fit into your adapter and match the size of the smaller bolts.
Don't run it with any slop, you'll wind up cracking the casing again.

Sent from my SCH-R970 using Tapatalk

 

[Jake]

Thanks for the replies. I figured I shouldn't be running it like that but I wanted to make sure I wasn't being picky.

 

[Fuzzy]

As far as I know the 241s behind the manuals have a slightly different case than the ones behind the autos. If someone rebuilt it for an automatic that could be your problem right there.

 

[Jake]

The shop rebuilt the trans at the same time as the t-case but I think they got something messed up.

 

[Jake]

Just wanted to post an update. Apparently there was a change sometime in the bolts. The earlier models used a 3/8 standard bolt and they switched to a 10 mm in the later models. Just different enough to cause me to worry but the trans tail housing part number stayed the same. They said they have run into it several times and had all the part number to show me and gave me the correct sized bolts. I'm still not 100% satisfied with the slop so I'm going to make or source some sleeves or find a bolt that has a larger shank than threads to keep it from moving.

 

[Fuzzy]

How much slop is there? All the times I've pulled my TCase out (NV3500/241) it's went back together without a noticeable amount of play.

 

[88GMCtruck]

For the record, the case halves are the same between MT and auto, the input shaft is different spline count.

And I think he is talking axial play (rotation) from the bolts being smaller than the earlier ones.

 

[Fuzzy]

Ah, I must have been misinformed, thanks for correcting that. However if they gave him the correct bolts shouldn't most of the rotation be gone?