austinjoe13

So today I turned down a snowy road and decided to put it in 4wd. I barely made it 100 feet and the case popped out and halfway into neutral and started grinding. So I slammed the brakes and locked up the tires and shifted the tranny into neutral and back to 2wd. I didn't have any more issues with it after that.

It is an NP231 out in a 96 XJ, I'm hoping all I need to do is adjust the linkage. What do you guys think the problem could be?

mud-dog27

did you try going back into 4WD? my jeep use to do this all the time and it was just linkage alignment was messed up.

confused the crap out of me first time it happened going down some trail in the middle of no where and drop hard off a ledge.....then no more go.....thinkin oh **** shifted the trans around then after a few seconds of panic thought hey lets try cycling the tcase and thats all it was is it had popped into neutral.

chill

linkage

austinjoe13

Awesome!! I don't have to put a t-case in dad's jeep!!! We just got some snow piles at school (finally!!!!) and I thought I effed it up crawling up onto them.

hankthetank

Same here, my linkage is still screwy...

mud-dog27

yea i hate the stock linkage which is why im going homebrew.

CPLSeraphim

Agree, your linkage either slipped a little, or is just off from where it should be. just go under it, and have a friend shift the t-case around a bit, and pay attention to the way the linkage moves, and losen the little bolt that holds it in place, and manually shift it to 4-lo. tighten up the bolt and shift back to 2wd, and if it is in gear at that point, try driving and shifting around a parking lot or maybe your street if it isn't too busy, and shift a few times to 4-lo, to make sure the linkage just doesn't keep slipping. If it does, i dunno what to do... that was my issue with my wrangler, but if it holds, and you can keep going to 2wd 4hi and 4 lo, you are all set.

Good Luck

hankthetank

You mean build your own links, or bypass them and have something fastened directly on to the t-case lever? I wanna do something like that...stoopid linkage.

mud-dog27

this is the route i plan on going
http://www.bsfab.net/?p=26

may not do that exactly step by step but very similar.

CPLSeraphim

Dude, that is awesome. Never would have thought about that. Everyone should do that as soon as their linkages fail. Nice plan

hankthetank

Awesome. Thanks for the link dude. Maybe ill fire up the Miller after work tomorrow...

hankthetank

Lol, dude, awesome dude, dude awesome. Great minds think alike, eh?

DFlintstone

On my 90, if I look down at the mount below the manifolds I can see that my engine is shifted forward an inch or so. Not centered, (mount is shot). 4 High is fine, but it doesn't want to stay in 4 low. I would want to make sure I had my mounts right before I did much adjusting.
I might have gotten a little carried away pulling a stump a while back.

red_dog007

My linkage is annoying too.
Have to tighten it practically after every use.


Last time I went off-roading using 4x4PT, on my way back out of the hills my light was flickering on and off so I had to hold the 4x4 lever to keep 4x4 constantly engaged.

mud-dog27

this is a good point, rotten motor mounts and trans mounts will cause a lot of problems as far as the linkage goes.....if yours are shot id say its time for MORE bombproof motor mounts and an OE trans mount