Lost all gears while offroad, transfer case or shift motor?

[explorer-aus]

Hi guys,

I need a bit of help diagnosing this issue. I was offroad in 4LOW at the time and slammed into a big mud hole, straight after the wack i was suddenly in neutral and had lost all gears. When i rolled to a stop i tried to put it back into gear but i have absolutely no gears at all. Park grinds if you try to put the car into it, but the others including reverse and nothing. When you try to change the car out of 4LOW into any other one with the switch, the relay ticks repetably and a whining noise comes out of the shift motor/transfer case area. It says it has transfered into 4X4 sometimes, and sometimes 4LOW...

The car starts and runs perfectly fine, it has no error lights although i havnt checked codes.

 

[explorer-aus]

Although I got no reply i'll put the solution to this issue here for future forum users to see.

Symptom: Driving in 4LOW, loss of all gears (Neutral), possible grinding noise when trying to shift into Park. You may be able to return to 4HIGH and 4AUTO but 4LOW continues to be neutral.

Issue: The cir-clip holding the outside gear that the planetary gears for LOW run on has popped out. This allows the outer gear to wiggle out slowly, eventually completely disengaging 4LOW. This causes the gears to free spin, appearing to be in neutral. What can also happen is the gear/circlip can block the selector preventing the shift motor from changing out of 4LOW. Avoid turning 4HIGH on and off, this will stress your shift motor.

Solution: Drain transfer case, remove bash plate, remove front and rear drive shafts, disconnect speed sensor (95-97 only), disconnect shift motor plug, unbolt shift motor, unbolt transfer case (5 bolts). You may or may not need to drop the transmission cross-member to get to the upper bolts, my car is body lifted and has extra space above.

Beware oil between transmission and transfer case, it pours out, usually all over you.

Clean transfercase exterior thoroughly to prevent dirt from entering transfercase, block all holes before cleaning. Open transfer case on work bench, carefully remove all parts from around planetary gears (i suggest placing them on a CLEAN part of your work bench in the order they came out. Also clean your magnet and filter while you're there.

Take out the loose circlip and gear, inspect for damage. You can beat the gear back in around the planetary gears with soft brass punch.It has to sit very far down for the circlip to hold it in. It is probably wise to bend out the circlip or even apply some type of glue to hold it in.

Re-assemble and reverse above steps. Make sure selector is set to H when put back together and set computer in car to AUTO before plugging back in.

 

[stockcarracer]

same problem.. jumped out of 4low. couldnt go to park, just grinds the park pin. Shut off engine, got it in park. Finally got it back in 4 high.

Now i have a whinning noise in the tcase. 4 low will pop out as soon as it shifts to second. Feels like gears are binding up. I guess im gonna pull it out and see whats going on with it.

 

[explorer-aus]

You're best pulling it apart ASAP and not driving it, the transfer case is very simple inside and you might just cause damage with loose parts driving it.

 

[Gator417]

I think I'm going to refer to my skid plate as the bash plate from now on, I like that.
Gator

 

[kevinspann]

Although I got no reply i'll put the solution to this issue here for future forum users to see.

Symptom: Driving in 4LOW, loss of all gears (Neutral), possible grinding noise when trying to shift into Park. You may be able to return to 4HIGH and 4AUTO but 4LOW continues to be neutral.

Issue: The cir-clip holding the outside gear that the planetary gears for LOW run on has popped out. This allows the outer gear to wiggle out slowly, eventually completely disengaging 4LOW. This causes the gears to free spin, appearing to be in neutral. What can also happen is the gear/circlip can block the selector preventing the shift motor from changing out of 4LOW. Avoid turning 4HIGH on and off, this will stress your shift motor.

Solution: Drain transfer case, remove bash plate, remove front and rear drive shafts, disconnect speed sensor (95-97 only), disconnect shift motor plug, unbolt shift motor, unbolt transfer case (5 bolts). You may or may not need to drop the transmission cross-member to get to the upper bolts, my car is body lifted and has extra space above.

Beware oil between transmission and transfer case, it pours out, usually all over you.

Clean transfercase exterior thoroughly to prevent dirt from entering transfercase, block all holes before cleaning. Open transfer case on work bench, carefully remove all parts from around planetary gears (i suggest placing them on a CLEAN part of your work bench in the order they came out. Also clean your magnet and filter while you're there.

Take out the loose circlip and gear, inspect for damage. You can beat the gear back in around the planetary gears with soft brass punch.It has to sit very far down for the circlip to hold it in. It is probably wise to bend out the circlip or even apply some type of glue to hold it in.

Re-assemble and reverse above steps. Make sure selector is set to H when put back together and set computer in car to AUTO before plugging back in.

Pretty sure I just had this happen...bumping it back to the top. I'm not sure if there is a sticky thread on it.

 

[kevinspann]

Another bump. Got mine to go back into 4 low with a nice thunk. It seems to be stuck in there despite what the dash indicator says. Also got a flashing O/D light after driving a short distance, possible trans overheat due to being stuck in 4 high.

I'm going to check operation of the shift motor, and the position of the transfer case (auto/4 low or 4 high) to see if that resolves the issue. I'm not sure if it's possible for the TC to get stuck with neither 4 low or high engaged, though the rebuild thread shows there is a neutral position inside of the TC. Hopefully it is just getting stuck there and causing the no movement situation.