Towing a toad

Alan_Hepburn wrote:

willald wrote:

Are you certain about this? Nearly all Wranglers have a transfer case that can be shifted into neutral for towing, which lets all 4 wheels spin freely, disconnected from the transmission. That being the case, I don't see why a Wrangler couldn't be towed on a dolly, if you wanted to. That is, assuming its not one of the (very rare) 2WD only Jeeps.

The way it was explained to me many years ago was that the way the transfer case worked was that shifting from 2H to 4H connected the front and rear drive shafts together; then shifting from 4H to N disconnected everything from the transmission, but did not disconnect the front and rear driveshafts from each other. I've never taken the time to investigate it further: the manual says don't do it and that's good enough for me!

I agree that if the manual says don't do it, then not a wise idea to do it, but your description here of how the transfer case works seems hard to believe.

If the front and rear driveshafts were connected together when transfer case is in Neutral for flat towing....You'd be binding up the driveshafts and axles very badly every time you went around a turn when towing. If that was the case, I don't think you could tow it more than a few miles on pavement before something would tear up.

Now it may be that they (front and rear driveshaft) are loosely coupled somehow when transfer case is in neutral. However, seems hard to believe they'd be locked together like is the case when in 4H.

I read on another forum that the Jeep transfer cases have an oil pump that is fed from the rear drive output shaft. That seems definitely more plausible and would explain why Jeep doesn't want you towing with a dolly.