Hey,

 

I just bought an 89 Brat (we call them Brumbies here in Australia). When i engage 4wd Hi range the engine just revs and the gearbox does not engage, when i engage Lo range everything works fine.

 

Anyone have any ideas what I can do to fix this?

 

Thanks in advance

Hey,

 

I just bought an 89 Brat (we call them Brumbies here in Australia). When i engage 4wd Hi range the engine just revs and the gearbox does not engage, when i engage Lo range everything works fine.

 

Anyone have any ideas what I can do to fix this?

 

Thanks in advance

 

You sure it's in 4WD-Hi? I dunno about Brumbies, but in my Leone wagon (EA82) if you put the lever between the Lo and Hi gear by mistake it can't engage. It's also bad for the box apparently try moving the lever a little bit up or down and see if that fixes it.

You sure it's in 4WD-Hi? I dunno about Brumbies, but in my Leone wagon (EA82) if you put the lever between the Lo and Hi gear by mistake it can't engage. It's also bad for the box apparently try moving the lever a little bit up or down and see if that fixes it.

 

Yeah, I had the same problem. You can't trust the light on the dash that says you're in 4-hi, and it always seemed like there were two "grooves" where the lever could sit. One would make the light come on, and the other would actually engage 4-hi.

 

OP: You've picked the groove that makes the light come on. Try moving the lever up or down a little into a smaller groove. You can barely feel it, but it's there.

 

Jacob

Yup, you moved the shift lever too far. The first move up shifts the rear drive in, then moving it further starts to move the low range shift collar in the front of the tranny. There's a neutral spot between the direct drive position of the shift collar and the lo-range reduction position. That's where you were when you could rev it but not move.

 

The reason that it's bad to run the transmission in the neutral spot between 4hi and 4lo is that the gear reduction is on the input to the transmission. When it's in neutral, none of the gears are spinning but the input shaft is. The gear oil can't get to the bearings on the input shaft unless the gears are spinning and splashing the oil up there.

 

When you have the main transmission in neutral, no gear set is locked to a shaft, but they are all spinning and pumping oil around, which is really important for the bearings.

Yup, you moved the shift lever too far. The first move up shifts the rear drive in, then moving it further starts to move the low range shift collar in the front of the tranny. There's a neutral spot between the direct drive position of the shift collar and the lo-range reduction position. That's where you were when you could rev it but not move.

 

The reason that it's bad to run the transmission in the neutral spot between 4hi and 4lo is that the gear reduction is on the input to the transmission. When it's in neutral, none of the gears are spinning but the input shaft is. The gear oil can't get to the bearings on the input shaft unless the gears are spinning and splashing the oil up there.

 

When you have the main transmission in neutral, no gear set is locked to a shaft, but they are all spinning and pumping oil around, which is really important for the bearings.

 

I see, makes sense. Thanks for explaining that

yeah, that happened to me once about 10 minutes after i put a new tranny in my car, i thought my new tranny had already gone to s**t! lol