Well I was expecting my clutch to die sometime.  They always do.  I was in Indianapolis evening rush hour traffic and "suddenly" the clutch felt different - in a bad sort of way.  Within 20 miles my clutch pedal went from normal to having less than 2 inches of "feel".  Was able to limp him home later that night.  Fortunately I hit 10 green lights in a row and finally rolled onto I-69 northbound.  By the time I came off my exit... I could only grab 4th gear so I continued home bound using rural roads.  Third would have been "more better" but beggars can't be choosers.  Got him to Day's and parked him there for the night.

After the transmission was out, I noted the front input shaft appeared to have a "milled" notch in the end of it.  I went home and checked my spare tranny and confirmed the notch wasn't milled, it was worn by the pilot bearing.  I hadn't wanted to swap in the spare tranny I had yet (got it from honkey_2.0 thru jluck) but it was simpler and quicker to just swap the transfer case out to the new tranny so that is what I did.

I'll purchase a new input shaft and needle bearing set in the future and the old tranny will be good and ready to go again.

When I removed the transmission shifter off the transmission housing, I noted the little metal plate that covers the bottom of the shifter was heavily corroded. It is held on with a screw at each corner.  I took an air gun and buzzed the corrosion off with a nylon scrub wheel, cleaned the surface with Xylol and put a couple coats of Rustoleum on it.  It occurred to me it would have soon had the same fate as a rusty oil pan.

I noted the removed clutch disc (OEM I believe) was manufactured in Spain.  I will replace the OEM clutch with a Sachs.  The Sachs disc was manufactured in Korea.  Uhmm... for clarification I'm pretty sure that would be South Korea because North Korea doesn't produce much more than suffering that I am aware of.  I'm good with Korean made parts.  I think their quality control on average is far better than the average part manufactured in China.  Just personal preference, I guess.

Anyway, gave me an opportunity to clean up and paint the top of the transfer case mount too.  Think I'll go ahead and install the timing chain kit while Buster is in a warm garage as well.  We have snow on the ground and the temperatures have returned to a more 'normal' winter here.

Cool!  150k isn't too bad on a clutch.  I replaced mine at about 120k when I had to rebuild the trans.  The groove on the input shaft sounds unusual - how is the input shaft bearing?  Any looseness? 

Let us know how the timing chain install goes.

There was VERY little play in the input shaft.  A bit surprising for the amount of wear on the end of the shaft. I'll replace the needle bearing on it when I replace the input shaft so it will be good for another 100K.   And MAN!!! what a difference the new clutch made on shifting!  I didn't realize how much the disc had deteriorated.  The clutch pedal is slick and smooth now. The tranny I got off of Honkey thru Jluck is nice and crisp as well.  Buster is a totally different driver now.

If all goes well the timing chain install is tomorrow.  FWIW the standard job rate for shops calls for 8 hours labor on the 2 liter engine.  The 2.5 engine timing chain job called for 11 hours labor.  In both cases the "book" calls for dropping the diff and the pan (to remove the front timing cover).  I don't think Buster's engine is anywhere near as contaminated as that 2.5 engine from a couple of months ago, but I am curious how the oil pick-up looks and I also want to scrub down the oil pan and repaint it for preventative maintenance.  I'm planning on starting on it early to see if it can be done in much less than 8 hours.  I'm thinking it can... but some pretty smart people put the shop rates on the repairs.  We'll see.  Anyway, I don't care to take this thing down again for a long time after this repair (another 150K hopefully).

I was discussing the oil pressure driven tensioners with Whitmore on another forum awhile back.  He is of the mind the factory tensioners are of a faulty design because of the gear and paw inside them wearing out and then relying solely on oil for continued pressure on the guides. After the truck sits for a couple days.... the pressure is lost allowing the chain to whip at start up.   I'm thinking a spring tensioner would be "more better".  I plan on exploring that idea too.
I have a huge tub of new springs from McAllister Carr to play with.

mmmm - unless I'm very much mistaken, Suzuki did release a redesigned tensioner - you may or may not, get the redesigned tensioner when purchasing pattern or non-SGP replacaement parts.

Among other things, the redesigned tensioner supposedly has larger oil ways (to reduce the possibility of clogging), and finer pitched teeth on the plunger ratchet.

Didn't "get to it" on the timing chain work yet this week .  The best laid plans... life has other plans for us occasionally.  Need to watch my commitment schedule a little closer.  I'll try to get at it again next week.  Small set backs are really not a big deal in the larger scheme of llfe.

I know what you mean - I've had the chains & tensioners sitting on a shelf for over a year now.