Sorry for long post...
So we went out on a longer run last Saturday... Backway to Crown King northwest of Phoenix. Fun trail, dozen or so obstacles and only like 2 that don't have a bypass. Those 2 are mainly ledges near the top of the trail. Group was 11 Jeeps... 5 of us did or attempted all of the hardest lines and 10 of the 11 did most of the hard lines.
Only 1 obstacle wasn't conquered by all who tried and that was the uphill we call Sluice. Near the top of the climb, there is a very large and well undercut ledge. I have done it in the past, but we all looked at it and agreed the undercut is noticeably deeper and more vertical. 4 of us tried and I was close, getting up on the ledge twice but having my belly skid hang up enough to not get past. 2 of the other 3 were JKU's on 37's that didn't get close and the last one was a JKU on 60's and 39's that did make it up.
Shortly after the top as we were closing in on Crown King, I picked up some electrical glitches, my gas gauge quit working, check engine came on, etc... When we got to the bottom of the hill to air up point, we found one of the JKU's had a stuck rear locker. All the tricks we had and couldn't get it to unlock. So the decision was made to nurse it 5 miles down to Black Canyon City and come back and pick it up Sunday... No problem there, got it parked and they all hopped in with me in the LJ.
It's another 15 miles in to the top of Phoenix from there... After about 10 miles, my speedo dropped to zero, I assumed it was more of the electrical gremlin... My gas gauge had come back but higher than it should have been. Anyways, I was going to stop for gas about 5 miles further. Then about 2 miles before the exit, I noticed smoke coming out from below. We talked and looked and decided that since we weren't smelling anything, the 2 miles wasn't going to make a difference.
When we pulled off and parked, after all the earlier issues, it was 9pm and with a flashlight, we crawled around and didn't really see anything other than fluid all over the bottom of the Jeep including on the muffler (smoke). So we parked that one there and got my daughter to retrieve the minivan from my other daughter and come get us. None of which was anywhere near us. Home at 12:30am....
The next day we went and retrieved all of the Jeeps and dropped them off at shops and mine at home. No issues there. The stuck locker turned out to be due to the fresh install of an ARB diff cover that apparently the drain plug in some of them is a 1/4 too long and causes the locker to hang up...
Easy fix.
I didn't look at mine until yesterday, was thinking initially that maybe I had overheated the trans and it spewed out. No, found that I somehow puked the speed sensor and put a crack in the Transfer Case output housing. Has anyone seen this before?
It looks like both of these parts are discontinued, so repairs instead of replacements looks to be the order of the day. The bigger question is cause? TC still seems to work perfectly, shifts in and out as intended. Do you think I can pull just the rear flange and the rear output housing and repair it and reinstall and refill? Not sure, but if there was something in there to cause this, I should certainly find it, right?
So we went out on a longer run last Saturday... Backway to Crown King northwest of Phoenix. Fun trail, dozen or so obstacles and only like 2 that don't have a bypass. Those 2 are mainly ledges near the top of the trail. Group was 11 Jeeps... 5 of us did or attempted all of the hardest lines and 10 of the 11 did most of the hard lines.
Only 1 obstacle wasn't conquered by all who tried and that was the uphill we call Sluice. Near the top of the climb, there is a very large and well undercut ledge. I have done it in the past, but we all looked at it and agreed the undercut is noticeably deeper and more vertical. 4 of us tried and I was close, getting up on the ledge twice but having my belly skid hang up enough to not get past. 2 of the other 3 were JKU's on 37's that didn't get close and the last one was a JKU on 60's and 39's that did make it up.
Shortly after the top as we were closing in on Crown King, I picked up some electrical glitches, my gas gauge quit working, check engine came on, etc... When we got to the bottom of the hill to air up point, we found one of the JKU's had a stuck rear locker. All the tricks we had and couldn't get it to unlock. So the decision was made to nurse it 5 miles down to Black Canyon City and come back and pick it up Sunday... No problem there, got it parked and they all hopped in with me in the LJ.
It's another 15 miles in to the top of Phoenix from there... After about 10 miles, my speedo dropped to zero, I assumed it was more of the electrical gremlin... My gas gauge had come back but higher than it should have been. Anyways, I was going to stop for gas about 5 miles further. Then about 2 miles before the exit, I noticed smoke coming out from below. We talked and looked and decided that since we weren't smelling anything, the 2 miles wasn't going to make a difference.
When we pulled off and parked, after all the earlier issues, it was 9pm and with a flashlight, we crawled around and didn't really see anything other than fluid all over the bottom of the Jeep including on the muffler (smoke). So we parked that one there and got my daughter to retrieve the minivan from my other daughter and come get us. None of which was anywhere near us. Home at 12:30am....
The next day we went and retrieved all of the Jeeps and dropped them off at shops and mine at home. No issues there. The stuck locker turned out to be due to the fresh install of an ARB diff cover that apparently the drain plug in some of them is a 1/4 too long and causes the locker to hang up...
Easy fix.I didn't look at mine until yesterday, was thinking initially that maybe I had overheated the trans and it spewed out. No, found that I somehow puked the speed sensor and put a crack in the Transfer Case output housing. Has anyone seen this before?
It looks like both of these parts are discontinued, so repairs instead of replacements looks to be the order of the day. The bigger question is cause? TC still seems to work perfectly, shifts in and out as intended. Do you think I can pull just the rear flange and the rear output housing and repair it and reinstall and refill? Not sure, but if there was something in there to cause this, I should certainly find it, right?