I've never had a problem (or a sound ) shifting my t-case. I always put it in nuteral before shifting. Do ya'll do this?

It may just be the friction of the oil spinning the transmission parts even though its in neutral, so it never actually stops. You can see this happen on a manual transmission vehicle too: Remove the driveshaft, put the tranny in neutral, and start the engine. The transmission output will still spin even though its in neutral. Sometimes you can even get it to spin the tires if its up on jackstands. The force exerted is minimal though. You can prevent it from spinning with your hands.

The difference on the auto tranny is that you could put it in Park instead of Neutral, and it probably wouldn't do it.

And FWIW, minor grinding/clunking getting it into gear isn't going to hurt anything.

An automatic will not spin in park. Locking pin takes care of that. But before you experiment with manually grabbing the shaft in neutral, think about it. The rotating mass in the tranny causes the shaft to rotate. depending on temps and condition of the tranny and fluid, you may find your hand ripped up even though there is no actual mechanical contact.

So be careful with that idea. It's like a non posi differential. The non drive wheel will rotate. Mass is mass.

Agreed nothing is hurt with the light grinding/clunking. I'll have to try it from park position... I think I've always been in neutral.