Noted. I would want to stay stock gearing if possible for now just so I can save some money in the meantime. I will definitely debate re gearing later on, but if I can get by with stock gearing so I dont need to change the front that would be better. Will be doing some light off roading for now to begin with anyways so im not too worried about the hills for now. I will keep in mind that 4.88s may be the way to go though. Thanks man!

Yeah that's what I thought, didn't think it should be an issue. I don't really want to regear so this is nice to hear.. thanks!

I was kind of thinking that as well but from my understanding, if the transfer was stuck in neutral, I should still be able to shift the trans into gear, just wouldn't go anywhere. Could be wrong though?

4th (OD) in the auto is way longer (lower RPM) than 5th in the 5-speed. 4.88's with the auto are not an issue on the highway (2400-2500RPM at 70mph) with 32's/33's.

-Charlie

And, that's where I'm at with 4.56 and the 5-speed.

Do you have any codes?

Gut feeling says it's not differential related. I too am on 285/70/17's on stock gears with zero issues so far.

It does potentially sound transmission related so I would get another opinion.
A different issue that happened to me where I lost all acceleration randomly on the highway one day and could only go into park was my throttle position sensor shit the bed and I had to coast off the highway onto the shoulder which was less than ideal

Thankfully I had my code reader on me and saw it was a p0120 code which was TPS related and was able to clear the system and keep driving until it set the check engine light off again and the car quit accelerating. Had to limp the rig home that way. Report back with any codes and the forum goers will be able to offer more advice

33s are fine with stock gear ratio. Going up anymore would consider regearing. You should be close to 2000 rpms at 70 mph. When you drain your diffs and transfer case it should be obvious damage has occurred just by observing the condition of fluid and magnets.

Not to beat an already dead horse, but I seventh (tenth?) the opinion that you need a second opinion from a shop that isn't full of it. It seems extremely unlikely that both diffs would fail at exactly the same time, 33s won't break your diffs, and even if that were the case it wouldn't affect your ability to shift your transmission between gears.

And for what it's worth I have 285s and 4.56s (and an auto). Sometimes I wish I'd gotten 4.88s.

I did actually use my neighbors code reader a couple days after it happened and it didn’t throw and codes unfortunately. Also no lights were thrown on. Not sure if it could still potentially be TPS related but damn would that be nice.

Yeah that shop was a complete waste of time and money to get it towed there... Thanks for the input. I do wanna give a little update too.

I was looking over stuff with my buddy and we are thinking it is a transfer case problem. When the 4wd shifter is in any gear (H or L4) and you try to shift the transmission into drive or reverse there will be a bunch of bad grinding noises. Id say it was coming from the center of the vehicle.

When the 4wd shifter is in neutral you can shift the transmission smoothly with no sounds or problems at all. It also throws the A/T P light on which I believe just means that the t case is in neutral while in park right?

I was able to get the 4wd engage once while in park but wasn't able to do it again. What do you guys think? Transfer case problem or still transmission?

AT/P light is a warning light to tell you the transfer case is in Neutral and the transmission is in Park - basically, even though the transmission is set in Park, it won't stop the vehicle from rolling. That's normal and not an issue.

Definitely a transfer case problem...

-Charlie

Gotcha, well that is music to my ears because this whole time I was thinking it was a transmission issue. Big savings money wise lol...
Thanks for the input man!

Ok so Im going to revive this post hopefully.. sorry for a lapse in updates, just have been having a hard time finding time to work on it but here’s where i am.
So we suspected it was the transfer case originally since we couldn't shift into gear and thats where the grinding noise was coming from, so I found one with 126k miles on marketplace, took the old out and put the new in. A lot of the grinding went away with the new one and I was able to actually put it into gear so it definitely fixed something but then we noticed that the rear driveshaft was spinning when we put it in gear.. sooo rear end problem? Whenever i put it in reverse the rear driveshaft was spinning without it moving.
Narrowed it down to either the axles or the rear diff of course, so this morning i took apart the whole rear end to see if i could see anything. When I took out the drivers side axle it looked like there were some chunks of metal but it could’ve just been chunks of gear oil… mmm not too sure lol its chunks of something. So i went on to take out the passenger side axle, this one was a pain, it didnt want to come out at all so i got a slide hammer and started working it out till all the bolts were out of their seating position but still couldnt pull it out, felt like it was stuck on the differential.
I was going to pull the diff anyways so i started doing that, once i got the differential loosened and started taking it out, my mom was able to pull out the axle for me so that solved that.
After looking over everything, i couldnt find signs of any sheared gears or anything anywhere, every part looked pretty good, besides the passenger axle maybe being a little worn down? Im now stumped on what could be wrong with it, i want to drive this thing ahaha, any ideas?
I tried uploading pictures of everything since im not exactly sure what im looking at but i cant get the pictures to upload… everything looks great to me but i could be missing something?