Rear band adjusted. New filter. 5 or 6 quarts of new fluid. Front shaft reconnected. Skid plate on. Tom Wood's driveshaft is in. Still need to put upper rear arms on and adjust pinion angle, but it's kinda close right now. Still need to put upper fronts on and new bushings in the axle. And have new front hubs to install also.
However, off idle jiggy-ness (shake) from the lift is gone. Yay. And if the ride is this much improved with only the lower arms replaced, it should be awesome once the upper arms are done. Whole thing feels firmed/tightened up. More solid.
The fat lip gods smiled on me, as the transfer case output yoke was lined up with the rear axle, so I didn't have to put anything in neutral or jack up the rear end to get the driveshaft installed. Yay.
So, I measured the amount of trans fluid that came out of the trans so I would have a baseline to start from on getting the level correct. Put 3 quarts in for starters. Was just a smidge concerned that the transfer case wouldn't work, though it really only goes together one way. So, I turned the key and was only going to maybe back it down 10 feet or so, to check it out, but when it started, it seemed to make a racket when in drive. Didn't make any noise at first in reverse, but in drive it had this clanking sound. Then it started to do it in reverse. Only talking about a couple inches at most of movement. Then I recognized the noise was the floor jack still sitting on the 2 4x4 blocks that I had under the transmission while installing the skid plate. D'oh!! Kicked the jack out and the noise was gone. Whew! Drove it around the block, but the transmission was acting funny. Hoped I didn't screw something up when adjusting the bands, but also thought it was maybe just acting like it was low on fluid. Got home with it warmed up/hot and level, and it was about 2.5 quarts low. Got the level right and went for another short drive. Everything seems to be working, and working well, or better than before. Before, when slowing down to go around corners and then accelerating, it just didn't act like it wanted to "kick down". I had already adjusted the throttle valve/kickdown cable some months back. But now, it drives like any other 3 speed auto. Nice.