4bangercraig

Went out and did some light wheelin at Pine Valley Creek the other night. I had a few buddies with me and I was shifting in and out of four, demonstrating the rear locker. Suddenly I found myself stuck in two. As in, I put it in 2, drove down the trail a little, and put the clutch in and went to put it back in four and the shifter was stuck. And it's still stuck. I crawled under and grabbed hold of the front driveshaft. It spins freely 360 degrees. I'm fine to putt around in 2 wheel drive, but my transfer case and front end are...gone.
What boneheaded move did I pull and what'd I do to my truck?
A few things I've thought of already-
At first I thought maybe I bound up the driveline. (I suspect that my rig winds up a little on dirt too) I went to a flat parking lot and jacked up the rear end. The tires didn't spin. Of course, they wouldn't if I bound it up so tight that I snapped something.
The transmission output shaft seal is iffy- I was getting a little seepage out the rear output shaft of the transfer case so I drained and filled oil in both tranny and tcase. Very quickly the tcase became overfull and pushed the excess oil out the seal to the driveshaft. So that's a known entity- but has never caused a problem before. I have a hard time imagining that the tcase ran out of oil and locked up- I cooled it down for two days and it still won't budge.

And now I'm out of ideas. Shifter linkage? Front driveshaft assembly? Excuse to buy a new dropped-gear twinstick setup?

Thanks guys,
-Craig

tried4x2signN

year make and model please...

And you know about gear bind so... I need to know more.

Is it 4cyl 5speed? Or V6 AT?

And I'm confused... You jacked up the rear and it spins fine. And the front is turning free with the hubs locked, wheels on the ground and the shifter is stuck in 2High?

And you don't have ADD right?

Correct?

turboturd8607

you may have chipped a tooth in the transfercase and it might have got wedged into the gears but that dosent realy explane why you still cant shift it into 4hi or 4low.

4bangercraig

Most of this info's in my original post, title, screenname, etc., but I'll clarify.
87 Toyota pickup longbed. 22R carb'd. I jacked up the rear because I would expect the tires to spin backwards to release driveline tension if I had bound it up. Same effect as backing the truck up fifty yards or so after a 4wd run on hard-pack. But the tires didn't spin. With the hubs UNlocked (sorry I didn't clarify originally) and the wheels on the ground, I can spin the front shaft 360 degrees and the driveline turns all the way to the hubs. I don't recall if that's normal, but my gut feeling is it didn't use to do that.
I know the tcase is gonna have to come out, I just really don't want to play mechanical darts and end up having to take the driveline apart more than once.

seanmearse

Okay, its rather simple. This same exact thing happened on my little brothers 87 22R short bed (now owned by TINYYODA on here). He was using 4H and 4L, all of the sudden, stuck in 2H. Pulled the T-case shifter when we got home and found that it was stuck in between the shift rails. It looked like it was in 2H, and it was, but stuck (was in the rear left, behind the left shift rail). Pull the shifter, clean of the rust (have yet to see one without a little), put a little grease on her and pop it back in. Should fix the issue. Here is a couple of pics to illustrate it. Not the greatest, but a vague idea of what I mean. And the last pic is for the after-the-fix trail ride, lol.

Mojave_Moze

Ok thats just weird, I read the title of the thread and was like " I've seen that happen before with sean's brother's truck!"

Apparently sean beat me to it, but yeah, that sounds exactly like what happened to sean's bro.

seanmearse

Did 'ya get her fixed?

4bangercraig

Thanks, guys. Haven't got er fixed yet. Gonna do it this afternoon, probably. I'll let ya know how it goes!

Mojave_Moze

Yeah, I've never heard or seen a toyota case just up and utterly fail, chances are pretty good its just fork mis-placement.

Then again, I've never seen a toyota tranny with a messed-up first gear either. Right Sean?! Lol

Kiroshu

There Was no such thing a s a V6 AT in 87.

Kiroshu

When you are backing up the truck for the 4-wheel release completion. What your really doing is unwinding the hubs in the front. Its doesn't have alot to do with the trans it self. 22r trans cases are gear driven and generaly don't give to much issue. If you tried everything to get the shifter to move and it still won't go then yea pull that shifter out and check it out. The suggestion from the other person on this thread about the shifter is a very good one.

seanmearse

Hey, the third tranny is working great.

drew303

I've never seen the shifters rusted like that. Looks like a case of old oil that has water mixed in. Your internals should never ever, ever look like that. Cracking open a case, or a shifter top should reveal parts that look like they just left the factory.

I've never heard of an issue where shifting into 4-hi being hard, but it's definetly normal for the stick to be stuck going from 4-2. It's not really stuck you just need to drive forward while apply pressure till things line up. Same normal issue with shifting into reverse from being parked.

If your forks look like that picture, chances are you've just got the forks bound up and god knows what the gears look like if theres that much rust in there. Time for a rebuild!!!

And the output seal, just pop off the output flange and re-RTV it. My front output leaks its no biggie. I'll pop it off this summer.

seanmearse

Suprisingly of the four California trucks I split the case on, which had rods like that, were fine inside, despite old oil. I wasn't fixing anything, I just like to take things apart. lol.

Mojave_Moze

Every time I replace my clutch and I pull the sticks, my case shifter never looked like that either, and I've had that truck through all kinds of mud and water. I don't know the history of sean's buddie's truck though.

seanmearse

Is it fixed yet?

4bangercraig

Gotta love repairs that don't cost anything. Cut up my carpet, yanked the boot and shifter, greased it up, put it back in, and it works just fine. The tcase is a messy place, and mine did have some gunk in there, but it wasn't quite as bad as your picture. I cleaned it out as best I could. The end of the shifter was a little chewed up, but not so bad that it's not functional and I figured it'd be better to leave it be than to try and file it and wind up having to replace the thing. Now that I've been in there and seen the fork arrangement, I'll be a little better about how I yank on the shifter. No more diagonals. Straight down, straight to the side, straight up. 23 year old trucks need to be driven gently and wheeled hard. ;-D
Thanks for the help!

seanmearse

NP dude, glad you got her fixed!