Know your Jeeps? I need your help!

I have a Jeep Grand Cherokee V8.  It is registerd '97 but of course it could be a '95 or '96 that sat in the showroom for a while.  The exact model year of the car is crucial, though.

It's a red Jeep.  Anyone know what year it is?

The universal joint on the front propellor shaft has failed.

What I am trying to find out is: can I disconnect the front prop shaft and run the car in two wheel drive without ruining the transfer case?  This would allow me to keep running the car while I wait for the UJ rebuild parts to come in.

The trouble is, having researched this on the internet, I get conflicting advice.  Some say it is OK to run the car without the front prop shaft if it is fitted with Command or Selec Trac but NOT if it is fitted with Quadra Trac.  Mine has Quadra Trac.  Other forums refer to the type of transfer case saying that it is possible to run without a front prop shaft with a NP242 transfer case but not with a NP249.  Still other fórum advice I received state that V8's (mine is a V8) were all fitted with the NP249 so cannot run with a disconnected front propshaft while yet more advice suggests that the NP249 transfer case was redesigned between 1996-98 allowing it to run without a front prop.  My car is right in the middle of those model years and I can't take the chance.

I tried ringing some Jeep dealerships in the States and only succeeded in running up an enormous telephone bill.  The local dealership here insist I must bring the car in.  How can I drive it 100 miles with a bust propshaft UJ?  And then all they would do is take six weeks to import the parts, find loads of other things wrong and charge me a fucking fortune for a new transfer case and gearbox, it all being my fault 'cos I drove the Jeep to them.

Dropping a propshaft and rebuilding the Universal Joints is child's play, I just need to know if I can run the car in the meantime, in which case I can wait for someone to hand carry the parts in or, if the car cannot run, I take the hit and DHL the parts in.

If there was a Mopart dealership here, I could just ring them and they would tell me all I needed to know and sell me the parts needed dirt cheap.  But I am in Africa, which is a real bummer when it comes to fixing broken down cars.

Like I say, I am not sure of the exact model year of the car but the chassis number is:

IJ4GZ78Y1TC190203

I love these classic uncomplicated cars that can generally be fixed at the roadside with a hammer and a blow torch rather than all this modern stuff that needs plugging into a computer to sort out and you can't beat a big lazy American V8 when it comes to chugging through the bush.

So, my dear American readers, there's a US born car down in Africa and this English Para Medic needs some urgent advice to get it rolling again.

The bust UJ where the shaft is connected to the transfer case.

The forward end of the same prop shaft where it plugs into the front axle differential.
One question:  There's a spline there.  Is it supposed to be sliding to allow for suspension travel?  If it is supposed to be sliding, I see no evidence of it doing so; it looks as if the spline is seized into the prop shaft which means any shock or strain imparted by suspension travel will be borne by the universal joint and the diff.


Oh, I forgot to mention, the neices came to stay.  They were so disappointed when I told them the car was stuffed and they would have to stay another night,  I was gutted.

 

Three very disappointed neices