How to Shift Your Quadratrac

Contributed By: Michael Baxter

To get into Low Range

Slow down to a crawl. Jeep says 5 MPH but, I find the closer to not moving at all the better. Of course, if you going down hill it's easiest. If your going on level ground, not too bad. Going up hill is the toughest.

Slip the transmission into Neutral and then shift your Low range lever. For example: If you were going up hill, you would want to be going fast enough to allow you enough time to do everything before your FSJ comes to a stop. I usually slip the tranny into Neutral, put my hand on the Low-Range lever and wait to shift it until just before it comes to a stop. Going down hill requires you use the brakes to achieve the perfect shift speed.

If you don't get it shifted all the way and find yourself in between (It's considered Neutral on the Q-T although there is no definitive position), don't fret. Rather than "grind" it in to low-range or back into high-range, just shut-off the engine; wait 5 seconds or so for everything to quit spinning and then shift.

Getting back into high-range is as easy as following the same procedure in the same order.

To get into Emergency Drive

It's basically the same procedure as shifting into/out of low range and can be added to the low-range/high-range shift procedure above to accomplish both at the same time.

As an example: Slow down to an appropriate speed for the slope (slower the better), open the glove box and turn the vac. switch, Slip the tranny into Neutral, just before you stop shift the t-case lever.

The red Emergency Light should come on the moment you slip the tranny into Neutral. The drive-train must be unloaded before the Emergency Drive will engage. Unloading the drive-train is accomplished when you put the tranny in Neutral.

Warning: Don't use Emergency Drive on a hard surface. It's locks the front and rear drive shafts together. They rotate at the same speed no matter what. The drive lines need to rotate at different speeds when making turns on pavement so that drive-line "wrap-up" can be dissipated. On dirt/icy/etc. surfaces in E-Drive, drive-line wrap-up is dissipated through tire slip.

A little grinding while going into/out of low-range is to be expected at first. You'll get better with practice and will be able to shift it without catching any teeth in no time. If you're in doubt as to whether or not you completed the shift, just put the tranny back in gear. If it goes, you made the shift. If it doesn't, shut-off the engine and then shift.

-- Michael Baxter
From Reno, NV USA on 16-May-1997 at 12:45:37 PDT