Great forum here, I've been searching for a while now but not finding my answers for my exact situation. Similar responses, but not exactly. Thanks in advance for any help.

Forever it seems that whenever switching from 4HI back to 2HI, my transfer case would never dissengage right away, when it did, it was with a horible thud(clank, bang,clunk, whatever) and feel like I ran over something. Switching into 4HI from 2Hi was fine. I have forever though whenever possible stopped the vehicle, switched out and backed up a little. This did in fact dissengage it perfectly, andf still does. However from time to time, thats not a good solution. My old Grand Cherokee never had an issue like this. Now recently I have noticed a light vibration when engaged and running down the road slightly or spotty snowy road and speed under 55(usually around 45-50). This morning when picking up my wife from work, I noticed it seemed to be slighlty worse, then after some time, I noticed the horible smell of burning fluids and realized it was me. I immediatly dissengaged the TC and continued on my way. As soon as I got home I checked and found differential fluid all over my engine compartment and battery. The cap on the exhaust tube was either missing, or the melted piece of plastic I found laying nearby? Now, yesterday I was tinkering with that hose and had the cap off, blew into the line to verify it wasnt plugged and all seemed fine, put the cap back on. Popped the plug on the diff and fingwer tested for fluid, all seemed fine, no leakes nadda.

My questions are.
1.) Is thge TC case issue "normal" or at least common occurance? Or is there an issue with it? If so what should I suspect?
2.)Would driving about 1.5 hour in somewhat snowy situation cause the diff to overheat, speed under 50 mph? Meaning splotches of snow and dryish road.
3.) Could the fact that I'm running 2 different manufacturers tires(front and back) though identical sizes, be the root of my diff problem?

I really just dont know where to start and what is considered normal for this vehicle. I understand many scenarios can cause this system to have issues. After shifting back into 2Hi, I never had a problem, all runs perfectly smooth. When shiftin the light immediatly changes to 2Hi, as should, never flashes, but the transfer is allways delayed and a big **** THUD if not stopped/backed and then move on.

I plan to pull the Fr. Diff plate tomorow and inspect, I'll report my findings, then refill if no evidence of damage and run it some.

Thanks a bunch for your help, I do appreciate it.

 

BTW, anybody know where tom get a digital copyof theservice manual for this model? I have one I found for the 2001 model, but the setup is different.

 

Noone? Really the search feature does not work that well here. Doesnt on other bullten boards I belong to. I have been searching pretty continously for 3 days now...I removed the plate and drained it. The gears all seem to look good, nothing apparently busted, chipped or badly worn. The fluid though does smell really bad and when shining a flashlight on the fluid looks like it had fine copper flakes in it. I saw something here with that description, but cant seem to find it now....Anybody wanna help out the newbie? I'm going to put it back together, fill it and drive it.