'88 4x4 (aka poor man's gator & off road toy) - the rear output shaft on my transfer case is loose and loosing fluid. I can shake my rear drive shaft at fore end and see the output flange move. Likely from stresses from driving w/a welded rear diff on the street + very high mileage. (was never supposed to be a street vehicle but finances have forced it.)

Question: is there an inner bearing where I can replace it w/o removing the transfer case. ie - maybe remove output flange, seal then a bearing?? If so how difficult & can it be done with a std bearing puller. Thx in advance for any help.

Might see if just the flange/nut is loose. If so, easy enough to replace the seal and torque down the nut to ~130ft.lb. and stake the new nut into the groove in the output shaft (process almost identical to the pinion seal):
- http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTricks/PinionSeal/index.html

Loose nut would be too easy - thanks for the info, good news either way.

Don't ignore it. I did, thinking that the leak was just a bad seal. Didn't realize that the nut had come un-staked, and started to back out. It let me know, when it backed out completely while driving one day. Only time my rig had to be towed.