Thread: high/low range selection loose..?

They have a spacer made out of plastic/composite material on the selector cross shaft that holds the hi/lo selector finger in the selector jaws. Eventually it falls apart from age/heat and that is what happens. Unfortunately it cannot be fixed without dropping the box out of the vehicle.If you can live with it just keep moving it to the left to engage when you want to change ranges. Won't cause any problems. When I rebuild a gearbox I put an alum spacer in there in place of the composite one - no more problems!

The high low selector fork is the one with the gold coloured ⚡️, it's fixed to the shaft running left/right, the actuator shaft is the one running top to bottom.
This is what you will see if you can get access to the top cover plate, they're not that hard to work on and only require basic tools.

Originally Posted by fitzy

The high low selector fork is the one with the gold coloured ⚡️, it's fixed to the shaft running left/right, the actuator shaft is the one running top to bottom.
This is what you will see if you can get access to the top cover plate, they're not that hard to work on and only require basic tools.

You can see the composite spacer between the selector finger with the pinch bolt and the side of the transfer case on the cross shft. That's the bit that falls apart and allows the selector finger to come out of the selector jaws.

Originally Posted by 3.9 110

the high/low range selection in my isuzu county, LT95 box, seems to be loose, the shaft into the transfer case slipped out a cm or so, and it lost the ability to engage either high or low range with no power to wheels. I got going again after pushing the shaft inwards where it engaged high range. Earlier as the car warmed up in low range I'd noticed a rattle...

Whats happened? How do i fix it? Can i keep driving it, could something go crunch, or is the only risk it dropping out of gear and me having to lean under car and push the shaft in again?

Forgot to say that you can rectify this without pulling any covers off the box. If your vehicle is a civvy one (presuming it is when you say Isuzu County) then what you do is make sure the cross shaft is located properly in the selector, add a few washers onto the end of the shaft on the passenger side where it comes out of the transfer case and then put a split pin through the hole in the end of the shaft. Now the shaft can't move to the right and allow the finger to come out of the selector. Problem solved!

thank you Bearman and Fitzy for great answers
i can still go out tomorrow
and know how to fix it, from inside and outside and what it looks like
which I'll do when I've time, but might go back down the beach first!

No worries.

Interesting - i looked at a 94 defender this morning with exactly the symptoms described with the high low ratio gear stick. Is the consenus that it can be fixed without taking the box off or not? A bit confused.
Cheers,
D