edh1005

Just bought a 97 Laredo. Guy said he didn't know if the 4 wheel drive worked. Translation NO. Haven't had too much experience with working on $ wheel drives. I put a water pump on the truck and dove it home. Today I was checking it out and I could not change the shifter out of 2 wheel drive. not sure how hard it should be to pull into 4wd. Any starting points?

Bustedback

It can be hard to get it to move the first time if it never been used. Mine was , now it shifts like butter without doing anything to it other than using 4wd a few times.

dave1123

Busted's right. The 97 still uses a mechanical shift rod system that can rust up and be very difficult to shift. Crawl under it and lube the linkage. That should solve your problem.

edh1005

sounds good. keeping my fingers crossed. Hopefully it drys out a little in the next couple of days and I can grease it up. Thanks

edh1005

Looks like you guys hit the nail on the head! Removed the linkage cleaned it up and painted it to help stop the rust. I have 4 wheel drive, shifts pretty easy now. Not sure about 4 wheel low seems to grind when trying to engage. Going to do some searching. Thanks a bunch!

dave1123

Yeah, 4WD low is unsincronized and the gears are turning at different rates. There are several ways you can do it but the simplest for me is to come to a stop, put the transmission in park, let off the brake letting it roll while shifting from t/case neutral into gear. It seems to work every time for me. You CAN do it on a roll with the trans in drive but you have to have a good feel for it. As soon as you hit neutral on the t/case the trans will speed up. It takes finesse to do it right.

On the linkage, if you can find it, spray grease works well.