D18 popping out of low

My transfer case is popping out of low sometimes. I'll be driving along and all of a sudden I'm just sitting there in neutral. Its really annoying when you going up a hill.

I've noticed it just slowly works it way out. If I remeber to push it back every once in a while its ok. I guess the easy fix would be a bungee to keep it forward.

Any ideas whats causing this? Suggestions?

 

Oh sorry , yep the transfer case, not the transmission. It actually happens most often when driving up a hill.

 

Sparky, who taught you how to say 1st and 2nd? Because they taught you wrong! R)

 

There's a ball and spring that pop into a groove in the shifter shaft. This holds the shifter in gear. The ball and spring may just be dirty, or the spring may be broke. The arrows in the pic shows were the ball and spring goes. There's one one each shaft. Hope this helps. Darrel

 

Thanks Darrel, I'll give it a look.

 

Glad to help anytime.
Darrel

 

Ours was doing the same thing. Checked it out and one of the springs was broken and the other side was missing the ball ! Replaced both springs and balls and it locks in everytime. We were blaming the shifter............

 

I had this problem, and I think it may have been the cause of major catastrophic failure - broken gear teeth. Checking the shift rail detent ball spring is good, I even added a stiffer spring which helped. But I think the real culprit is rounded gear teeth on the low range gear and the mating intermediate gear which act as a ramp and push gears apart putting you into neutral. A bungee may just save you from failure. Mine broke when wheeling under a fair load and I think shifter was only half way in low position do to worn gears and/or trans shifter hitting it when down shiftting and pulling it halfway out of gear. Good luck