Ok. so hoping somebody is fairly familiar with the innards of these beasts.
Some things I know about them:
1) lots of people don't like them. It's what I am working with.
2) The MAIN difference between the 2wd and 4wd is the length and spline count on the output shaft. Verified this after grabbing a 2wd version off the ground at Upull-Upay
3) they modified the slider and locking mechanisms on the 5th/reverse group around the your 96 I believe. The 2 changes have to do with a slight shift of the fork slot and the updated version has 42 teeth where the old version has 33. I Discovered this after taking a real close look at the slider from the 2wd unit. It just did not look like I remembered it looking when I did the syncros on my trans.
4) they have a tendency to develop a relatively high pitched whine in 1st, 2nd,3rd and 5th Gears, lots of folks think it is the input shaft main bearings. Who knows?
5) As most of us know, the tail housing is different....

So, armed with this information, my question is, Can I take the entire 5/R gear cluster, locking rings and slider from the what appears to be newer M5od and put them in my older case? I am also planing on just for the hell of it, swapping in the input shaft and new bearings.

Thanks in advance.

 

Sounds like you'd be better off just using the later trans.

(phone app link)

 

Oops, missed note 4.5 in my post.
4.5) while rebuilding my original M5od a few years ago, I goofed up and installed the 5/r slider ring backwards. This caused a problem while trying to shift into 5th gear, where you could not do so. The ring will not engage and causes a very lovely grinding sound of the parts, this also caused the slider teeth to be kind of, how do you say, dissapeared, yea, that might be the correct term. So I can either use the 5/R gear set from the newer trans or spend about $150.00 replacing the old tech.

 

...or just use the later trans as-is.

 

It is a 2wd trans, as I alluded to item 2 in my oriinal post, the one from u pull it is a 2 wheel drive, most of the internals are identical, but the out put shaft is very different in length and spline count.