I was talking to a former colleague the other day and he mentioned that some people had taken it upon themselves to cut the transfer case to get to that one bolt for the oil pan. Has anyone seen any of these? I don't believe in it personally and would actually have harmed someone if they attempted it on my watch but I was curious if anyone on this forum has come across one of these cases.

 

Black, a few members here have had it done to their cars. Essentially you are drilling like a 3/4" hole into a support for the transfer case so you can access the bolt that is behind the support. I have not heard of any issues to date since failure of this item would also lead to a situation where the transfer case would move significantly, leading to many other issues.

I tend to agree with you, not to my car. But, at the same time, I understand why it is done.

 

Thermo, thanks. My background is in a dealership so if I ever saw it, nononono. Know what I mean? Now as far as the guy at home who finds out that the bolt is in the way and he's not gonna pay someone to get the transfer case out to get that bolt. I'm fine with that. What my thoughts are, If you're paying an expensive shop some big amount of money to change that $4 gasket, Would someone be okay with finding out the shop they just paid a big amount of money to, cut through the transfer case to make it easier for them to replace the gasket?

I'm open minded but sometimes when working at a dealership, you are taught that a certain way is absolutely wrong and you just accept it as fact but there may be the more than one way to do something.

I'm just musing I guess.

 

When I worked at the Jaguar dealer I saw a few transfer cases with the hole drilled to replace the oil pan gaskets. I might try it on my own car but not on a customer car. I'd hate to try to explain to the customer, Jaguar warranty or the employing dealer how I just punched a hole in a case to beat the labor time.

bob gauff

 

Please stop me if I am wrong here, but there is a letter from Jaguar saying to do this. That the bolt is not able to be accessed without either removing the whole transfer case (major labor in doing so, therefore major expense) or cutting the bolt after backing it out part ways (backyard mechanic figured that one out).

So, is it "cheating the system", I guess it depends on how you look at it.

 

>is a letter from Jaguar saying to do this.

That certainly seems like something that a TSB could be issued for...

Has one?
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Jaguar: Grace, Pace, and Space - Sir William Lyons

 

I don't recall ever seeing anything that Jaguar would think that it was okay. In fact, our Jag rep forced another dealer to replace a t/case that had been hacked. I have a problem with a dealer that charges a lot of money and allowing it to happen. The only thing those people in the dealer are cheating is the customer and that is bad business. Customers are what drive business. No happy customers, no business.

Anyone that wants to "modify" their own car, no prob, but it is unethical to hack a car to beat the time. The times were good on them so you didn't need to do it. We were able to get the repair done relatively quickly. One guy got good enough at them that hackery was unnecessary. He was able to them in 2 hrs without cutting in addition to removing the subframe and tcase. It can be done efficiently.