My wife was driving home and had driven about 5 miles on the freeway. After taking the off ramp and stopping at the next light, when the light turned green, she accelerated but heard a strange thump and the car wouldn't move forward.

I arrived and tried a few things. Put the car in park, then shifted back to Drive. It seems to engage the transmission, but pressing the gas pedals only revs the engine. We called the tow truck and it was loaded onto a flat bed.

When unloading it at the local auto repair shop, the car wouldn't roll backwards off the flatbed, even in neutral. Yet, in neutral, it rolls forward fine. Tomorrow morning I will have them check it out and I'll test to see if reverse works or not.

I'm fearing this is the transfer case. Could it be anything else, such as transmission or prop shaft/drive shaft that popped out?

 

Blaydes99, unfortunately, what you are describing sounds a lot like a transfer case. I hope it isn't, but with the history of our cars, that is the most probable item.

 

Thanks Thermo. I'll report back after I work with the local shop to find out what the problem is. I'm already looking for some used transfer cases though

Can I use any transfer case from any 2.5L or 3.0L engine, and any year from 2002 to 2008?

 

Blaydes, yes, you can use any transfer case you can that fits in an X-Type. With that being said, the internals of the 02-03 transfer cases are slightly different than the 04+ transfer cases and you may find that if you stick an 04+ transfer case into the car, it is going to feel different on the ice/snow. You may like it, you may not. In short, the 02-03 transfer cases have a viscous coupling in them that controls the power front to rear. The 04+ ones do not have the viscous coupling and they relied a little bit on the braking system to help control wheel speed.

 

Thanks yet again. Is the later model more reliable then without the viscous coupling?

 

>you can use any transfer case you can that fits in an X-Type.

But wouldn't he run into the "open differential" situation if he obtains a later one (i.e., his car probably doesn't have traction control to address the wheel spin problem with not having fluid coupled earlier design)?
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Jaguar - it's not an automobile, it's a Motorcar

 

pad, he will to a certain degree. He will end up with 1 wheel in front and 1 wheel in the rear with all the speed and the other two just sitting there. So, yes and no.

IT appears that the later design was a little more reliable, but at the same time, I have heard of all of them failing. So, that is a mixed blessing. I say you need to see what is available and go from there.

 

Well, I had this at a shop for a few days and the technician swore up and down that the transmission had gone out. I still felt it was the transfer case. I had it towed to a friend's house (he has a great shop) and this morning we spent some time checking everything.

We took off the transmission inspection plate and see that the flywheel is spinning when the engine is running. We then took off the right-front axle and looked into the transfer case. We saw what looked like a spring sitting inside! So we used one of those extendable magnets on a long pointer and pulled it out. It turned out to be a brass ring, about one inch in diameter. This ring has a break in it, so it looks like the letter "C". Not sure if this came from the CV axle or something inside the transfer case, but I'm currently looking for a used transfer case in the area, as it seems that it really is the transfer case after all.

It's really a shame as I still have plenty of oil in the transfer case and it even still looks pretty clean, a nice honey color. Do you think the case is completely ruined or is it worth trying to service and try to fix?

 

Blaydes, when it comes to the transfer case, the best advice that I can give you is to crack open the case and see what you have inside. If you look around these parts, you can find a listing for the 4 bearings that are inside of the case and you can order those. Then it is just a matter of making sure that there are no cracks in the case and nothing else mechanical is wrong. Hard to say what you will find. If it was nothing more than a bearing letting go, then you may be able to get off for fairly cheap with the repair.

 

Well, I've figured out a few more things. The brass ring was from the axle and it pulled off when we pulled it through the transfer case. Looks like we weren't supposed to take this out as it could damage the internal seal. Luckily, we looked at these internal seals and they still look good and are nice and flexible.

We also determined that the transmission itself is bad. We tried a replacement transfer case and have the same symptoms as before. The transmission is so weak that with the car in drive, we were able to grab the propshaft by hand and stop the movement. Another funny thing the transmission does is that it turns slowly whether the car is in park, drive, or neutral.

So, I'm looking for a good used transmission with 60K miles or less. Going to be fun to change this beast out.

 

Good luck .

 

Thanks again guys. I've moved the rest of the repair pics and details to a new thread here: https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ct-pics-85372/