Annmarie

1995 Ranger XL, 3.0, 4WD

I was heading down the mountain to Ka Lae when I heard a loud "whizzing" sound ... like a high-speed fan gone berserk, or one of those 4th-of-July things that spins and makes a loud buzz as it flies into the air. Only lasted a second or so, whizz-WHIZZ then nothing.

Suddenly I have no 2WD. Engine fine, clutch feels OK, but when put into gear, no go. Made it back up the mountain to home in 4WD (20mph); took a couple hours, truck smells like it's been rolled in dead dinosaurs and fried in axle grease.

I'm a 52-yr-old female who worked on my own vehicles up until about 1990 or so when they got too 'techie' ... I know the basics of how things work mechanically, but don't savvy the computerized stuff; however have no mechanical experience with 4WD. Anybody got any idea what just happened? Is it time to haul it to the volcano and drop it in?

Annmarie

Annmarie

Well, you've all been remarkably unhelpful , but for the benefit of future users who might have the same issue, I'll input what I've found out on my own:

The problem is rather obviously the transfer case. When I put the truck on stands and crawled under, the differential, U-joints, drive shaft and so on were all fine, but moving up the drive train, I discovered a shattered TF housing; large piece missing, guts hanging out.

To my further annoyance, the housing had been wrapped with BALING WIRE, and must have been like that when I bought the truck about a year ago. Since I know I haven't hit anything with it, obviously the previous owner did a quick patch and dumped the vehicle ... when I bought it from a used car lot, I didn't have an opportunity to get under it to check out such things.

CAVEAT EMPTOR, folks. This is going to cost me another thousand bucks or so to fix; or I may just part it out and get a REAL truck. Certainly it's been said before, but NEVER trust a used car lot ... check it out yourself ... EVERYWHERE, even underneath!

Annmarie