Hello all. I am sure this topic has been gone over in detail many times but with winter fast approaching and many new members on the board I figured I'd start a new thread. I've had a '94 XJ with the 242 transfer case for about 10 years and have driven it in a lot of snow. Last spring I got a second XJ a '93 which has a 231 transfer case. (231C to be specific). What if anything can I expect to be different in the 231 compared to the 242? I've read a lot and heard about how one can be driven at faster speeds on drier surfaces etc.

 

231 has 4 hi and 4 lo in either gear should rearly avoid driving on dryer surfaces pretty 4 lo your not gunna use really on the road I use it only for off road 4 hi for the snow

 

Read:

https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f2/231...-please-25113/

 

And you, learn some punctuation for Pete's sake.

 

 

The NP242 has an extra "Full Time" mode which can be driven on any road surface because it has an open differential. With the right circumstances, this means you could end up with one wheel drive. The NP231 does not have the extra "Full Time" mode. Ignore the cranky people who complain about punctuation. Do they have anything better to do than complain about others punctuation?

 

This forum would get boring and dead pretty fast if everyone just searched for old posts and read them and there was no interaction. Thanks for the link and I shall read it.

 

I'm guessing if people are answering forum questions, then they don't have a lot going on at the moment. Your post was incredibly helpful, but I couldn't figure out anything coherent from the first response. I can get over poor grammar; lack of punctuation makes it difficult for me read things. Maybe I'm just getting old...

 

Sorry new to forum just trying to figure out this keyboard on my phone and never really ever use punctuation all that much, I apologize just trying to help out people on the forum. I'll keep an eye on my punctuation.

 

Who said i was cranky? Poor grammar and punctuation bother me, no big deal...

 

From what I understand, if you need to be using 4WD a lot, and at greater speed, you would want the NP242 because it has the Fulltime 4wd ability.

The NP231 does not, so to use 4wd with it you will need to keep the speeds low and not drive in a straight line as much or on dry pavement.

 

Here's the main difference I see, with the 231 you shift into 4 wheel drive only on slippery surfaces where your tires don't have to be turning at the same rate but then when you hit a dry patch in the road or whatever you need to shift back into 2 wheel drive. But with the 242 you can shift it into 4 wheel drive full time and be done with it. This is advantageous when driving on roads that have snow or ice in certain places but are dry in others. The full time option is extremely nice to have on a DD somewhere that gets snow. I've also heard that with the 231 you shouldn't drive past a certain speed in 4 wheel drive whereas Full Time has no speed limit, but I haven't seen the evidence to back that up. Hope this helps bud

 

Bingo. Also, since the front and rear drive shafts aren't locked, you reduce understeer at higher speeds. Anybody who's been in 4H in an NP231 and tried to take a corner on snow knows what I'm talking about lol

Urban myth, there has never been any evidence to suggest that in the first place.

 

Uh yeah..about that...lol
My wife and I drove out to Illinois to look at a wrangler for her last year when we had that giant snowstorm and i had my xj in 4hi about 75% of the time on the freeway. A few spots we were even cruising at 65mph lol. That was a fun trip...not...

 

OK next random question When I shift either my 242 XJ or 231 XJ into 4H the yellow "Part Time" light on the dash comes on. I am guess this actually has nothing to do with it being in Part Time or Full Time?