davedude44

Went down to the river the other day to play around down by the water and ended up going pretty far in. I got some water in the cab that i am working on drying out. I parked the car afterwards and today when i tried to move it, the jeep wouldnt budge. After giving it more gas hesitantly it broke free and could drive it around. I came back to look under the chasis and the tcase has a crack in it with fluid leaking out. Additionally the tcase shifter wont budge. Im guessing water got in it and froze it up? As of now I am thinking of pulling the tcase drain plug and draining what I can out and using a heat gun to melt any ice that is in there. For now I will probably jbweld the crack in the case until I can drop it out in spring.

This happen to anyone before? Any thing I should look for in regards to the situation? I will upload some pics after am done with dinner.

Thanks

salad

Check your transmission... be lucky if it survived.

You've learned the hard way why you always check fluids after fording water lol

I doubt very much that JB Weld will work on the transfer case. Even if you take it inside and warm it up.

BlueRidgeMark

Yep.

cruiser54

Was there any fluid in the case to begin with?

cruiser54

Where are right now? I'm visualizing you somewhere.

salad

Very funny. I was waiting for the wife to come out from visiting a friend of hers - just dropping off a gift, be five minutes. Forty minutes later I had to take a whiz pretty bad. Warming up my feet now.

cruiser54

You didn't whiz on your feet, did you?

davedude44

Yes tcase was full prior to going in water. Did not look like tranny was leaking but will inspect it tomorrow. Wasnt looking to heat the jb weld. Was going to heat the ice in tcase so could get it and all the fluid out. Then grind down area around the crack a bit so jbweld can hav3 a better surface and stick to and seal back up the tcase. At least till can drop it out when it warms up.

Anything i should look for on either tranny or tcase?

davedude44

Looked over tranny and didnt see any cracks or fluid leaking.

Here is a pick of the crack on the transfer case. No longer stuck in gear and seems like all gears in tcase engage fine. Have not driven it like this in any other gear but 4 full time

cruiser54

I'd be worried about the integrity of the case even if you "sealed" it with JB weld.

BlueRidgeMark

Yep. Big time. That casing isn't just keeping the fluid in, it's supporting a working mechanism that has lots of power being run through it. JB weld is great stuff, but it's not up to the job of containing those kind of forces.

And getting it to adhere is going to be very interesting. You'll need to clean the entire area thoroughly with something like brake cleaner to get rid of the trans fluid, otherwise the JB won't hold.

Doing that while NOT getting that inside the t-case will be tricky.

And how are you going to keep more fluid from draining out while you JB it?

salad

You need a new transfer case man.

Drain the transmission and see what comes out.