No power to front wheels...

callaway · **Posted:** Mon Nov 16, 2009 12:38 am

Was finally able to test the CJ properly and things aren't quite up to par. I don't have power to the front wheels - It took some decent momentum to climb over smallish obstacles, and if I attempted to crawl over something ( picture a small ledge maybe a foot high ) from a dead stop, the back wheels would spin but the CJ just couldn't get up and over w/out some forward momentum.

When I put the hubs in 4x4 occasionally there's a loud clicking every so often - are the hubs just bad and not giving me 4x4 ? The front axle is a d30 - could there be something wrong with the axle/gearing ?

Diggerfreek · **Posted:** Mon Nov 16, 2009 1:12 am

could be the hubs or the t case

tommudd · **Posted:** Mon Nov 16, 2009 10:15 am

Have you had the hubs torn down and checked them out, if they haven't been used for a while they could just need cleaned, greased and reinstalled. I would pull the hubs apart and check them out first thing. Easy to do

Also is the linkage engaging the transfer case?

callaway · **Posted:** Mon Nov 16, 2009 12:14 pm

tommudd wrote:

Have you had the hubs torn down and checked them out, if they haven't been used for a while they could just need cleaned, greased and reinstalled. I would pull the hubs apart and check them out first thing. Easy to do

Also is the linkage engaging the transfer case?

Haven't cleaned the hubs yet... do they need a rebuild kit or just pull em and clean em ?

Interesting thing about the T Case... the cj is stuck in 4hi - if I try and shift out of it the car dies...

tommudd · **Posted:** Mon Nov 16, 2009 12:24 pm

I wopuld just tear them apart and clean them good, unless its had a rough life they should be OK, what happens is old grease, dirt, water gets in there over time and then they stick. Back when I had lockable hubs I tore mine down almost after every outing to regrease etc. Not a hard job at all, just take a little time :wink:

callaway · **Posted:** Fri Nov 20, 2009 11:29 pm

Just got finished cleaning the hubs and re-greasing them. The old grease was rather nasty and as was caked in their pretty good - with the cleaning and new grease in place turning the hubs from 4x2 to 4x4 is much smoother.

I'm going to set up some obstacles tomorrow and see if cleaning the hubs out helped matters any...

callaway · **Posted:** Sat Nov 21, 2009 1:16 pm

propped some tires against a tree this morning and tried out the hubs in 4x4 - there's definitely more power there after the cleaning, but the hubs in 4x4 mode are still loud and clanky - are locking hubs supposed to be like that ?

tommudd · **Posted:** Sat Nov 21, 2009 3:25 pm

No shouldn't be loud and clanky at all, should lock in and no noise really They may not be locking in completely , how did everything look? Did the gears lock into each other when you had them apart? I've seen some that were not taken care of get burrs on the edges and not lock in compeletely before.

callaway · **Posted:** Sat Nov 21, 2009 3:32 pm

tommudd wrote:

No shouldn't be loud and clanky at all, should lock in and no noise really They may not be locking in completely , how did everything look? Did the gears lock into each other when you had them apart? I've seen some that were not taken care of get burrs on the edges and not lock in compeletely before.

No burrs or anything that looked chewed up - The gears all meshed nicely as I was cleaning/re-greasing...

Could the hub assembly itself be bad ?

No power to front wheels...

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