Welcome to the wonderful world of "what nexr?". I drove one of those
things for several years and only sold it when it finally got to the
point where things were wearing out faster than I could replace them -
but I bought it at auction from the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural
Resources with the apeedo zeroed out and put another 130k miles on it,
so I guess it was tired.
Best I recall - it's been 25 years or so - the shift was reverse
forward left. First was rear left, second forward right, third rear
left - the old H pattern. Simple enough to find out - put it forward
left and ease out the clutch. If it moves backward, that's reverse
<g>.
You have a horse of a drivetrain in that thing. The only problem it
ever gave me was it had worn bearings when I bought it and the counter
shaft in the transfer case ran through the new bearings by 100k miles.
Think of it this way:
You have an engine coupled by a clutch to the transmission - same as
nearly every vehicle made. In a 2WD vehicle, the transmission
connects to the drive axle via the drive shaft. In yours, they add
another gear box between the transmission and the rear end. That box
provides two functions: it gives you a selection of 2 gear ratios
(effectively doubling the number of gears in the transmission) and it
couples in a connection to a second drive shaft so that you can drive
the front axle as well as the rear. Mine also had a third coupling on
the front for a power takeoff (PTO) drive to run auxiliary equipment -
I had a 12 ton PTO monster winch on mine.
Couple of considerations. When you have the front hubs locked in and
engage the front axle via the transfer case, you create a solid lock
between the front and rear axles. You want to keep the tires the same
size front and rear or you will build up some large forces trying to
move - the two axles are locked together so something has to give to
allow the motion. With normal use (both axles with the same
differential ratios and the same size tires on dirt or slippery
surfaces, that is taken care of by tire slippage. Even with the same
nominal tires sizes on both ends, you still need that slippage to take
care of small differences. 4WD is for surfaces that are loose enough
or slick enough for some tire slippage. Your transfer case is strong
enough to take a lot of abuse but using 4WD on hight traction surfaces
creates a LOT of pressure on the whole system and things are gonna
break. I managed to eat a few u-joints along the way.
There are several reasons for a neutral in the tc. First, you have to
have it simply to allow enough room for the gears to clear when
shifting between the high and low range without locking solid - a bad
thing. Second, if you use the PTO you want to be able to connect the
engine to it while sitting still. A third reason I used it was for
starting on those 30 below mornings. With the little 152 4-banger, I
had to hold in the clutch until the engine was running then put tranny
in neutral. Ease off the clutch to get the tranny spinning, let it
run that way until it would idle. Put the tc in neutral, shift to
reverse and repeat until the transmission loosed up. Go thru all the
gears, then put the tc in low range, 2WD and hope like heck I had
enough power to spin the rest of the drive train to get moving without
stalling. With that one, I figured that if the engine stalled before
I got it to move I was done for. What I would have given for the
modern synthetic oils for the drivetrain! Or maybe a garage...
On necessity for you will be a repair manual. The best I found was
and old (circa 1965) MOTORS manual. Next to the factory service
manual, that was the best. The Haynes and Chilton manuals are OK, but
they tend to be generic and lack a lot of detail that you will want.
You might find something at the local library.
If the body is in good shape - that midwestern winter salt tends to
reduce them to rubble in short order - you want to check the rubber
parts and replace them right off the bat if they are not in good
shape. The spring and shackle bushings are one thing to check closely
followed by the motor and transmission mounts. Also check the brake
lines for rust.
On Sun, 4 Dec 2005 18:19:17 UTC
[email protected] wrote:
> I'm in the process of acquiring one of these as a project to work on
> this spring, and I've got two really basic and stupid questions (this
> is my first manual vehicle, my first 4x4, and the first vehicle I've
> bought that will require significant work to keep it operational):
>
> 1. what is the shift pattern for the 3-speed transmission? If there was
> a decal anywhere, it's long gone, and:
>
> 2. is there a resource that explains how the drivetrain works so I can
> understand how the various interrelated settings should be operated?
>
> As I understand it's engine -> clutch -> gearbox -> transfer case ->
> axles. Front axle can be switched in or out, and then the hubs
> themselves can be locked or unlocked by getting out and twisting the
> selector on each wheel.
>
> So I've got three speeds from the gearbox, and two from the transfer
> case, giving me six possibilities. Then I can choose to have the front
> axle driven or free. Then I can either lock or freewheel the front
> hubs. For normal on-road dry driving, I should be running the transfer
> case in high and the front hubs free, right?
>
> I don't understand:
> a) why the transfer case has a neutral setting,
> b) why the truck ships with locking hubs when the same functionality
> can be achieved by switching the front axle to free; what's the
> difference?
>
--
Will Honea
Thus far I haven't worked up the gumption even to start it. It's
