i have a 1985 4runner EFI auto, and my transfer case is stuck in 4wd low, when its in low it shifts fine, but whenever i go to shift it to 2hi or 4hi its like the transmission puts itself in nuetral, any ideas on what this could be?

already checked the linkage and even tried shifting the case by hand but still nothing

 

If you keep it in Drive and try to shift to 2HI or 4HI it most likely will kick it out of gear. The transmission needs to be in Neutral before shifting back to HI range from LOW range.

 

yeah we have tried shifting it in neutral, shifting it in park and still nothing

 

Will the shift lever move back to 2HI? There are shift rails in there and one may have broke....highly unlikely but it could happen.

 

Were you in 4lo on high traction terrain aka on the road?

 

i disagree, i have the same setup on my 85p/u 22re etc. and i have never put the transmission in neutral to shift any transfer case gear. may not be the recommended thing to do, but its been put through that daily for 10+ years.

ive always shifted 2hi to 4hi to 4lo and vice versa while the transmission was in drive, and even sometimes 1 or 2 and ive never had a problem.

 

According to the 1985 owners manual (A340F with hubs locked already) as long as you are going less then 18 mph and your wheels aren't spinning (no wheel slippage) you can shift into low range. You can shift from low range to high range at any speed no need to stop.

 

thats what i thought, as long as the hubs are locked the front drivetrain would already be spinning the same rate as the rear (UNLESS the wheels were "slipping") so when you shifted 4hi, it would already be syncro'd.

 

Make sure that you have the same size tires all around, I had this happen once and it was because one tire was a different size. That includes air pressure in the tires, I got it out by going backwards and forwards a few times while trying to shift it in between.

 

I think its a sign. Your truck is just telling you to take it wheeling.

 

i think i read somewhere on here about a trans selinoid issue that would cause this nuetral effect in 2&4hi but worked in 4low. it should be on here recently.

 

my tires are not the same size, there is less than a half inch difference in them and they are street tires so we thought about that being the problem but then not seeing much difference in the tire size we ruled it out, but i had tried going forward and backwards while shifting and it would never work, i have read about that solenoid going out and looking at what all i would have to do to fix it i just decided to call up a buddy and he gave me a whole trans/xcase for next to nothing that only had 140k on it so im just going to put this in until i rack up the cash to buy the adapter to put a j shift case on it, and tearing this thing out i couldn't believe how big this case is, its bigger than the one on my 02 chevy 2500hd and heavy, but honestly with this being a trail rig the less electronic stuff the better so i think the switching to a j shift is the best solution to this problem, i have heard alot of bad about the xcase behind the a340h trannys and just dont want to deal with it anymore, thanks for all the input guys