Newbie ‘12 Taco questions. T case/rear end

[Blacksheep10]

Just bought a 12 TrD Offroad, v6 Tacoma as my all-around truck to do truck stuff outside of what my 1 ton is for. Getting rid of my daily driver JK/hemi/37s, ford ranger, minivan (my favorite) etc.
T-case. Went in low on test drive. Took forever to get back out. I miss my floor shift already. Actuator need exercised more? Pulled off and cleaned/lubed? Is there linkage (haven’t been under it for this particular thing, no outside research yet)? Went to pull my dads feed truck backwards today and couldn’t get to go in low, just beeps. Spent some clutch on that deal in high side. Hold my tongue right from now on or is there something I need to fix or service?
Rear end has whine (assuming rear end, haven’t ran on the lift yet to check). Sounds like pinion bearings. Anything I should check before pullling apart and inspecting gears etc and putting new bearings in (assuming I don’t find something different while under it running on lift)

I am sure I could scour the Internet and find more answers but I normally just get frustrated with Reddit types so I am starting here

 

[rockota]

The actuator can only be timed, IIRC, by taking the case apart.

 

[YotaAtieToo]

I hate that they made a manual trans, electric tcase truck