I have finished the reassembly of the salvage yard transfer case. It turns pretty easy, easier now than prior to disassembly. Without much effort I can turn the front output and hold the input still. The input shaft was coated in ATF too. The only noise when turning it by hand I believe is from the chain. It has a new Motorcraft shift motor on it.
It took 7.5hrs to reassemble and clean up, dang I'm slow. Due to the snow squalls I moved my neighbors 20-ton press to my garage and had to put it back of course. I made a run to the parts store for the proper style front output seal and took a break for dinner. I also kept second guessing myself and decided several parts needed to be cleaned before being installed which all took additional time. Oh and on Friday I had used dish detergent and water to clean up the mostly empty case halves. There was still water between the sun gear and the case so it had to come out, turned out to be a good thing as there were a couple spots of light rust that had formed in the teeth. That ~6" snap ring is strong, but using 2 flat head screwdrivers I was able to work my way around with 1 underneath it to keep up ward pressure on it and the other to push in and out of the retention groove.
A couple things I learned. Turning the rear output shaft while installing some parts makes it much easier. For the 4Lo hub it helped, for the pump there's no way to install it without turning the shaft while holding a bit of pressure on it and waiting 'til it lines up just right. Holding the clutch pack and spring down while putting a snap ring back is slightly tricky. I ended up getting the snap ring right above the assembly, then holding it all compressed and tapping the snap right down with a flat head screwdriver. Hands down the most difficult part of the entire thing was getting the shift fork shaft lined up while installing the rear case half. It always leaned over towards the output shaft, the shift forks rest on it and cause this. I test fit the case halves, you need to line up the shift fork spring on the rear case half as you're seating it. It took ~10 more minutes to get the shift fork shaft lined up and the case halves fully seated, but I got it with a long screwdriver. I put some silicone on it to seal the case halves and fought with it for ~20 minutes this time. The chain is in the way to go straight in to the shaft and you can't angle the rear case half at all as both output shafts are in their bearings and the shift motor shaft is also seated a good bit before the shift fork shaft is against the rear case halve.
A 20-ton press is overkill for this. The bearing inside the planetary took the most pressure to seat by far, but it took the most to remove as well. The planetary is steel, the case halves for the other bearing seats are aluminum. The rear bearing for the front output shaft was also pressed in. For the other 3 I ultimately found it was just too hard to use the press and used my hand held bearing/seal installer with my mini sledge. Reconfiguring the press for each bearing is time consuming, but I tried for all 5 bearings. The rear bearing for the rear output shaft I could not find bits and pieces to line it properly so the hand held was the only option here with my available tools.
I poured a 1/3qt of ATF LV in an old plastic food container to soak parts and make it easy to get a few drops of ATF to drip in places needed during assembly. I poured what was left into the clutch assembly before closing it up.
I feel good about the current state of the salvage yard transfer case. I'm gonna have to give my body several days to recover. I plan to swap the transfer cases next Saturday.
EDIT: I never did find where those 3 seals/o-rings could be used.