Right, I was about to drop money on one of their twin stick t cases cause I just wanted a quick swap before I realized that its really not much effort to gather everything yourself.
The stories on tacoma world right now is pretty sad. Some peoples build have been there since like 2019.

Re: Upgrade spring kit.

So I just did some research on this and everything I'm seeing only points to the gear driven tcases from Toyota needing this upgraded spring kit. I haven't seen anything for the chain driven FJ tcase.

And I haven't felt like it's been needed with mine, at least not yet. I don't know of that same spring can be swapped into the FJ case or not or if it's actually even needed. Kinda like the twin stick. It's nice, it looks cool but I haven't felt like I really NEED to have a twin stick with the option of 2LO. I think I need a rear locker more than I need 2LO or a twin stick honestly.

And yeah, I have one sitting on the side lines too.

And side note - just over 8500 miles on my swap, with the stock, non-ADD front axle. Nothing has blown up yet. Everything works great still. Turned 300k miles on the 4Runner the other day as well.

@xtremewlr Thanks for all the info!! It's good someone is getting this out there.

Just picked up a new to me 4th gen this winter and have had nothing but problems with the 4x4 system (especially in cold weather). I've been looking at info on this swap off and on for some months now and like everyone one else found the info for RST. Glad I hadn't pulled the trigger on anything yet.

Can you tell me about running a manual FJ case. Can you switch from 2hi to 4hi while in gear/moving? Switching from 4hi to 4lo requires transmission to be in neutral? Why would I need a twin stick? I'm not sure of the advantages of 2lo? Like you said, a locker seems more important. Excuse the ignorance, never owned anything with a manual tcase, just electronic actuators.
Thanks again!

RST has gone out of business because the owner is shady as all hell and screwed people out of money. So you wouldn't be able to go that route anyhow.

My swap is coming up on 14,000 miles now, without any issues. Still works great.

The transfer case works just like it would have in the FJ. You can shift from 2WD to 4HI while moving. Safe max speed is something like 25mph I think.

You are correct, to shift from 4HI to 4LO, you need to come to a full stop and put the transmission into Neutral. Then you are able to shift into 4LO.

IMO, a twin stick is not needed with an automatic. They look cool and work great. But they are better suited and more beneficial in a manual vehicle. I decided not to go twin stick and have no regrets.

That's a center diff switch? I looked at a 5th gen recently and originally thought that's what it was, but it seemed to only be a lock for the dial positions. I just sat in it, no driving, and didn't have time to look closely.

Yea, I probably could have made that a little more clear. Technically in the 5th gen Limited, there is no separate center diff switch like on the 4th gen dash. There is a single dial. It has you switch from 4hi unlocked (Full time AWD) to 4hi Locked or 4 Lo Locked with that dial. And yes you are correct that little button is just a lock for the dial positions.

So basically when you switch from the 4hi unlocked to 4hi Locked, it's doing the same thing as 4th gens diff switch on the dash. It's still electronic servos making the switch in the center diff. That's where I should have omitted the "incorporated" part of my statement.

The manual t-case does not have the electronic servos that go bad. But it stays in 2wd until you move the lever into 4hi, and then the front diff has a system that locks the hubs.

It can be a little confusing. There are threads in here that delve further into a better explanation. I came from the old school manual locking hubs and manual t-case shifters in my old pick ups, so I had to do a little reading myself when I first bought this 5th gen years ago. I may look into putting a manual t-case in my 5th gen Limited in the next year or so also.

Ahhh, ok. I guess I was sitting in a limited. I didn't even look. That dial was the only one I saw.

Bringing back this glorious thread. Just ordered my T-case from a local yard that will be working on pulling it from the car between today/tomorrow. If all goes well i'll have a T-case in the garage ready for a swap by Thursday this week.

Taking a BIT of a gamble here but I am about 95% certain everything will work out. The T-case is coming out of a 2015 4runner with only 88k miles on it and they are only charging me $214 for the case and the guy is going to try and sneak the shifter into there for free, if not i'll be at $300 total which is still ridiculously low to me. I'll probably be able to offload my factory Tcase for that amount since its still perfectly fine with only 140k miles on it. I had no idea the 5th gen's had a manual shift option for a T-case.. but everywhere i have checked it is showing up as a replacement option for the FJ's, so it should work. Not sure if the shifter is the same or not, but since it has to be modified anyway I don't think it'll be an issue..

Pretty excited to get this done, hopefully by end of the month i'll be on a manual T-case.

Bumping this thread back up from the dead to add a key install detail that may help others. I had my manual t-case installed this past week and it's great! However, I don't have a body lift installed.

Instead, what we did was use two 1" spacers and longer bolts on the rear two bolts holding the transmission shifter down. The front left bolt spot was cut off, so only three total bolts holding the shifter (no problems there). But this avoids a body lift, which I do not want to do at this juncture.

Naturally, this causes the shifter to push out of the shifter trim. The simple fix with that is to remove top two layers of the shifter, add a shifter boot, and cover it up. The dash shows you what gear you're in anyways. Note in my picture I ended up cutting around the shifter trim to try to make it fit, without realizing I could've taken off the top two layers of the shifter.

Sorry for resurrecting an old post but was the new drive shaft custom made? Or was it a different drive shaft from a different toyota thats'll work. thank you

Front and rear driveshafts are both custom made to fit the new length. There are no other driveshafts you can swap in unfortunately.

I wonder what the deal is with GX470 transfer cases. I believe they have a shifter like FJ Cruisers but I am very curious if they are AWD as well. My main concern with getting rid of the stock V8 t-case is losing the AWD feature which is nice for going up to the snow.

AWD is nice but with a manual shifted tcase, you still have 4HI, which is essentially like AWD. You just can't leave it engaged in dry conditions like AWD, it can cause the transfer case to bind up.

Yep exactly. Which is why I'm wondering about the GX470 t-case since it has a manual shifter I think for 4hi/4lo not 2wd/4wd hi-lo like the FJC t-case. Might be a good option for those that want a manual shifter but keep AWD.

Little update to my tcase swap for anyone thinking about doing this.

I have 46k miles on the swap now and have only had 3 issues.

First was breaking the welds on my shifter and having to re-weld it. Not a big deal and my fault for not making it beefier.

Second was I had to replace the input shaft seal on the transfer case as it started leaking. This was on a used tcase with over 130k miles on it when I installed it, plus the additional 40k-odd miles I put on it before replacing the seal. Not caused by overpressure or some other bullshit that has been reported before. No leaks since, pretty straight forward repair. Drop the tcase, pry the old seal out and install the new one and then reinstall the tcase.

Last was the disintegrated OEM plastic shifter bushing. Common problem on these tcases and other Toyota manual shifters, most notably the 1st gen Tacomas. Marlin Crawler sells new Delrin (or something similar) bushings that drop right into the shifter housing. You need their BLUE bushing for the FJ tcase. Replaced that when I replaced the input shaft seal. Link to the seats -> Heavy Duty Seats | Marlin Crawler, Inc.

So far, it's a 100% reliable swap. I can literally go months without worrying wether the tcase will go into 4WD when the time comes. It's a non-issue. Stock front axle is fine and so is the tcase.

Do the swap, you won't regret it.