92 Explorer transfer case neutral option??

I have a '91 Explorer that has the manual (shift on floor) transfer case option, that has a neutral position. It was ordered this way and came with factory manual hubs.

John Normile

There should indeed be a neutral in your transfer case.... it is located between 4H and 4L. The later neutral tow option is a computer subroutine that stops the shift motor at the neutral position. The 4WD control in the early models is relatively stupid compared to later models and I don't think you could teach them this trick. Someone talented with electrical and a knowledge of the shift plate arrangement in the motor head could cobble a separate switch to allow this selection.

The usual caveates about watching the car roll off into the sunset because the park brake wasn't applied before neutral was selected....

Thank you Jim. Still a little puzzled because I removed the [electric] motor and rotated the shift shaft manually. Between 4H and 4L the front drive shaft never disengaged. Unfortunately I did not have the rear wheels in the air so I couldn't tell for sure that the rear drive shaft did not come free.

But you are suggesting that if I had the car in the air and rotated the shift shaft manually, I would find the neutral position. If this is true, I'm home free because a computer that can find that position is easy for me. Lots of ways to do that.

Probably can't put the car in the air before weekend but I'll try then.

Thanks again - I'll keep you posted.

Thank you John. Your post combined with Jim's post suggest that I just didn't find the neutral position. Need to look again more carefully.

Jim suggested that the later models that do have a user selectable neutral do this through a computer software algorithm. I'm not particularly interested in reprogramming a Ford computer but building a new computer designed to do just that is easy for me.

Gary

Thank you Jim. Still a little puzzled because I removed the [electric] motor and rotated the shift shaft manually. Between 4H and 4L the front drive shaft never disengaged. Unfortunately I did not have the rear wheels in the air so I couldn't tell for sure that the rear drive shaft did not come free.

But you are suggesting that if I had the car in the air and rotated the shift shaft manually, I would find the neutral position. If this is true, I'm home free because a computer that can find that position is easy for me. Lots of ways to do that.

Probably can't put the car in the air before weekend but I'll try then.

Thanks again - I'll keep you posted.

If you have the auto hubs and they are working correctly, driveshaft rotation will be limited by the action of the front hubs. The hubs engage when the axle is turning faster than the wheel - direction matters not..... If the front wheels are stationary and you turn the front driveshaft, the hubs will engage and give the impression that the t-case hasn't disengaged.

Conversely, we can rotate the wheel freely either way.. again, direction doesn't matter since the wheel is spinning faster than the stationary shaft. The concept may be difficult for some to grasp but it does work....

If you disassemble your t-case shift motor (or better, a donor we can screw up on), you'll notice three or four (CRS disease) brass arcs on a board. The

4WD module understands the position of the shift forks from the juxtaposition of these arcs - some are making contact and some aren't. The principal is quite simple though it appears complicated without a real good stare and some concentration.

Understand the hub operation. When the transfer case is in 4H, the front drive shaft will rotate about 90 degrees before you feel and hear the hubs begin to engage. After engagement, another 90 degrees or so will have them fully locked.

However when the transfer case is in 4H or 4L, the front shaft movement is restricted to about 5 or 10 degrees before the gears in the transfer case stop any further movement.

When I was searching for the neutral position, I was trying to feel the disengagement of the transfer case (constrained to about 5 degrees movement) to a place where the transfer case had let go of the front axel and movement was now restricted by the hubs. Never found a place on the shift shaft between 4H and 4L where the transfer case let go of the front shaft. Had the motor off and was moving the shift shaft by hand. The detents and casing marks for 2H, 4H and 4L are really clear. No ambiguity there.

Since more than a few have suggested that this transfer case really does have a neutral, I had concluded that the transfer case must have synchro cones or something roughly equivalent, spring loaded that require the drive shafts and gear mechanism to be completely unloaded before a shift can be completely affected. Such a mechanism would make sense because this transfer case allows shifting in and out of 4WD high while in motion.

Looked like my best shot of finding this elusive neutral position is to lift the car so both drive shafts were completely unloaded. If it's there (no reason to doubt, several have told me quite clearly that it is), I'll find it.

The encoder wheel is cute - easy enough to understand. Also easy enough to cut a new one with an identifiable contact logic combination telling a computer (my design, not Ford) where to find neutral. Other ways probably easier is to just use a conventional encoder wheel and have the computer count ticks between 4H and 4L. As soon as I find the neutral place, figuring out how to have the motor put it there should be pretty easy.

Thanks for your help.

G