today i was driving on I65 in Indiana to meet a guy to trade my 85 4runner. my friend and i were cruisin along at a bout 70 when the engine kindof hesitated for a second....almost felt like it was missing. it did it once then like 5 seconds later it did it again. i just assumed i needed to clean out the intake manifold or maybe it needs new plugs. when all the sudden my wheels locked up!!! my friend thought i had just randomly slammed on the brakes, but something went wrong for sure. i countersteered as much as i could, we ended up spinning around...managing not to flip.... next thing we know we are facing traffic.... luckily we were mostly on the shoulder. the truck died during the whole episode, so when i went to start it and move it out of the way it wouldnt move. my first guess was that the rear carrier busted and locked up because it seemed like it was only the rear wheels that were locked up. we put the transfer case in nuetral and rolled it closer to the shoulder, but keep in mind it is still facing oncoming traffic. we wanted to act fast, so we decided to take the rear shaft off. it was freezing doing this too, plus my knees were still shaking from what just happened. got it off and it still wouldnt move. i couldnt figure it out. i thought maybe it the front carrier since i had the hubs locked. out of curiousity i put it in 4lo and it moved!!!! so my dad (who was following us in my accord) ran out to direct traffic over a lane because i had to turn around. i did around a 10 point turn to get it turned around and not get stuck off the shoulder. we then decided to get it off the highway. since it wouldnt drive in 4hi or 2hi i had to drive it in 4lo. we were just past an exit and we had to drive like 8 miles to the next exit going 30 on the shoulder.

after thinking about it all for awhile i assumed it was the transfer case. am i thinking right??? or could it be anything else. it still drove and shifted fine in 4lo. has anyone heard of anything like this?

comments please.

 

sounds like transfer case.couldnt really be anything else from my little bit of experiance.good luck and let us know when you open it up or have it looked at...

 

If you had blown a t-case it wouldn't have shifted or moved at all I don't imagine.

Sounds like you grenaded a rear end.

 

So just in case anyone wants to know...i figured out how it happened when my transfer case seized. here is an answer from Marlin himself:

"So here's what happened.
The truck was run with little or no oil in the t-case and the low speed gear and cage bearing seized togeather locking up the rear output shaft. By shifting into 4 low, the low range gear no longer turns on the output shaft and the truck can then be driven."

so be sure to check the oil level in the transfer case. i never even knew it was leaking is the crazy thing.

 

Wow! Good thing it didn't end up being more serious! I will heed your warning and make sure to check my Tcase level!

Thanks for the info and I am glad your OK!

John

 

That is crazy to see this happen to someone else, my situation was not as severe. I too broke the chain in my t-case, it would still drive in 4lo, but made a horrible broken gear sound. So I for sure thought I had busted a ring gear or something. I took out my tranny recently and took the t-case off and sure enough the chain had broken. Now I am trying to find out if I can replace it with a gear driven unit.