After hitting (quite literally) Ajax and Lower WoodPecker a couple years ago, J's Jeep acquired a loud thumping noise and a bit of a transfer case shifter problem. I'm really just a fix-it man, not a diagnoser, so he went down to the dealer to see if they could figure out the prob. Since it was J's wallet they were trying to have him sign away on, he probably remembers the specifics better, but I believe they claimed that they would have to open up the belly of his beast and probably start looking for t-case organ donors.
They also said a new skid plate was needed, driveshaft, etc.
Well he cried BS and brought it back to me and then cried some more :wink: so we got up under it for some good old fashioned poking around. A lot of times we do the safest thing possible short of:
(March 1995, Michigan) James Burns, 34, of Alamo, Michigan, was killed in March as he was trying to repair what police described as a "farm-type truck." Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could ascertain the source of a troubling noise. Burns' clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found Burns "wrapped in the drive shaft."
DarwinAwards.com © 1994 - 2006
Reference: Kalamazoo Gazette
(btw, unless what I hear a/b Darwin becoming a Christian at the end of his term is true, I'd have to say he got the ultimate Darwin award - up his firey poop shoot .)
So we put the Jeep on 4 jack stands and "drive" it in the driveway while yours truely tries not to compete for the Darwin award or burn his large nose on the catalytic converter, but figure out the problem from a rock's eye view.
We finally isolated the noise to a silly simple problem.
The start of the problem was that J's center skid, indeed did get a case of the benz, forcing his t-case a little higher than should be. This off-kilterness afftected his 4wheel drive shifter linkage. And on that link there was a ring- Ee-Ii Ee-Ii.. ohhhh. The ring was the culprit at the end of the line all caused by a little bowage. It was popping b/c it didn't like the strain the new angles were incurring on it.
So all we did was get a center skid from the junk yard for $50, slap it on, greased the ring a little and voila- kept the dough and J-Slapped the man right in his seven slotted grill.