Sticky 4wd selector.
 

Hey guys asking another question here, I did some light wheeling and shifted into 4lo was fine, went to shift out of 4lo and realized it was really hard to push forward got it into neutral and had a hard time getting into 2wd, got into 2wd and moved around tried to see if it did the same thing and it did. It also was alittle tough getting into 4hi and part time from 2wd as well. Lack of use maybe it was my first time using 4lo and the previous owners told me the never used 4wd and they bought it new. 04 WJ, 6cyl, select trac and Dana 44 rear
thanks

I suppose you shifted the transmission into Neutral first and THEN shifted the 4WD selector into Neutral? You have to do the same to shift back into any other gear as well.

yes I put it into neutral first

I would have to guess that it's what you think and that it's sticky from not being used... I have an '02 4.0 Laredo with the NV242 SelecTrac and the 42RE 4-speed automatic... it too sticks sometimes when switching between 4WD gears... the girl I bought it from said she rarely used, if ever used, the 4WD. There has to be some transfer case lubricant available to "un-stick" the gears and stuff in the transfer case and make it work again... it's also worth checking the transfer case fluid.

ok I'll check the fluid tomorrow and is there a specific name of the lubricant?

ATF+4, same as used in the transmission. The t/case shifts via a cable and the cover may be damaged and gotten corroded inside. One end is inside the cabin and the other is on a bracket on the side of the case. There is a accordion style boot on the t/case end that might be damaged. Try disconnecting the t/case end and check for freedom of motion. The main reason Jeep went to a cable was because a lot of people hardly ever use 4wd and the exposed type linkage gets rusted.

You can shift from 2wd to 4pt and 4ft on-the-fly just by letting off the gas pedal. The only time you need to shift the trans to neutral is to go into and out of 4lo. I've been surprised by areas of windblown snow on the highway and shifted to 4ft at 60 mph. I've also found the simplest way to shift into and out of 4lo is to come to a complete stop, shift to PARK, then shift the t/case thru neutral allowing the jeep to roll just slightly to allow the gears to mesh. When you shift the trans to neutral, the output shaft is still spinning from internal friction and sometimes will grind going into 4lo. This is just the way I do it and it works for me. I've only used 4lo about a dozen times since I've owned the jeep, about 60K miles. When I bought the jeep, it had about 125K miles on it. I changed the t/case lube at 160K and it was BLACK! I doubt it had ever been changed before. I never had any problems with the t/case as of yet.

yes I doubt that the tcase fluid has been changed I'm mine as well

I believe mine did that too. When I first bought it, I attempted to select 4 wheel drive low and it was really difficult. It didn't feel good so I assumed someone previously maybe broke it and decided not to mess with something that was still working fine. Im going to fiddle with mine also now. =)

let us know if you find something

Ok so replaced my Tcase fluid and disconnected the tcase shifter and sprayed the cables with PB Blaster and moved the tcase lever by hand back and fourth. I put everything back together and while at a crawl the selector moved very easy compared to before, hopefully this helps someone.