[fritter]

Hi all,

A couple of months ago I did a river crossing through some very soft sand.
The sand was right up to the sills and I only just made it through.

Afterwards, I could hear some grinding noises which I figured was sand in the brakes, and it stopped after a few minutes.

After driving about 30km over a very wet dirt road, I stopped unlocked the hubs and put the transfer into 2H.
Drove about 10 meters and noticed that it had popped back into 4H, so I stopped and selected 2H again.

This happened 3 times and then there was an almighty bang from the transfer box and it was fine for the 200km drive home.

I thought it was transfer wind up.

Then I went to Stockton beach.

I drove the length of the beach, unlocked the hubs, put the transfer into 2H and the same thing happened.
It popped back into 4H.

I found that I couldn't get it into 4L when it was doing this and it was hard to put it into 2H.
After another bang it went fine all the way home.

I've checked the transfer mounts and they look ok as far as I can tell. There's no cracks in the case that I can see either.

Any ideas as to what would cause this?

It's an 89 vit G16a trimatic.

Update: I've changed the transfer and front diff oils.
Haven't been able to get the rear diff bottom plug out as yet to change the oil.
I've only had it in 4wd a couple of times since the original post, and the transfer no longer pops back into 4H after changing to 2H.

I'm still getting a loud bang after changing from 4H to 2H after driving about 10 meters and I'm now sure it's coming from the rear dif and not the transfer as originally thought.

Could I have jumped a tooth on the drive shaft?

Anyone got any thoughts?

[fritter]

This turned out to be the rear UNI joint binding.

Changed the UNI and it's been good ever since.

Just in case anyone gets the same problem in future.

[Mike57]

Thanks for posting that.