Two very basic 4x4 questions Scout 80

Welcome to the wonderful world of "what nexr?". I drove one of those things for several years and only sold it when it finally got to the point where things were wearing out faster than I could replace them - but I bought it at auction from the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources with the apeedo zeroed out and put another 130k miles on it, so I guess it was tired.

Best I recall - it's been 25 years or so - the shift was reverse forward left. First was rear left, second forward right, third rear left - the old H pattern. Simple enough to find out - put it forward left and ease out the clutch. If it moves backward, that's reverse

You have a horse of a drivetrain in that thing. The only problem it ever gave me was it had worn bearings when I bought it and the counter shaft in the transfer case ran through the new bearings by 100k miles. Think of it this way:

You have an engine coupled by a clutch to the transmission - same as nearly every vehicle made. In a 2WD vehicle, the transmission connects to the drive axle via the drive shaft. In yours, they add another gear box between the transmission and the rear end. That box provides two functions: it gives you a selection of 2 gear ratios (effectively doubling the number of gears in the transmission) and it couples in a connection to a second drive shaft so that you can drive the front axle as well as the rear. Mine also had a third coupling on the front for a power takeoff (PTO) drive to run auxiliary equipment - I had a 12 ton PTO monster winch on mine.

Couple of considerations. When you have the front hubs locked in and engage the front axle via the transfer case, you create a solid lock between the front and rear axles. You want to keep the tires the same size front and rear or you will build up some large forces trying to move - the two axles are locked together so something has to give to allow the motion. With normal use (both axles with the same differential ratios and the same size tires on dirt or slippery surfaces, that is taken care of by tire slippage. Even with the same nominal tires sizes on both ends, you still need that slippage to take care of small differences. 4WD is for surfaces that are loose enough or slick enough for some tire slippage. Your transfer case is strong enough to take a lot of abuse but using 4WD on hight traction surfaces creates a LOT of pressure on the whole system and things are gonna break. I managed to eat a few u-joints along the way.

There are several reasons for a neutral in the tc. First, you have to have it simply to allow enough room for the gears to clear when shifting between the high and low range without locking solid - a bad thing. Second, if you use the PTO you want to be able to connect the engine to it while sitting still. A third reason I used it was for starting on those 30 below mornings. With the little 152 4-banger, I had to hold in the clutch until the engine was running then put tranny in neutral. Ease off the clutch to get the tranny spinning, let it run that way until it would idle. Put the tc in neutral, shift to reverse and repeat until the transmission loosed up. Go thru all the gears, then put the tc in low range, 2WD and hope like heck I had enough power to spin the rest of the drive train to get moving without stalling. With that one, I figured that if the engine stalled before I got it to move I was done for. What I would have given for the modern synthetic oils for the drivetrain! Or maybe a garage...

On necessity for you will be a repair manual. The best I found was and old (circa 1965) MOTORS manual. Next to the factory service manual, that was the best. The Haynes and Chilton manuals are OK, but they tend to be generic and lack a lot of detail that you will want. You might find something at the local library.

If the body is in good shape - that midwestern winter salt tends to reduce them to rubble in short order - you want to check the rubber parts and replace them right off the bat if they are not in good shape. The spring and shackle bushings are one thing to check closely followed by the motor and transmission mounts. Also check the brake lines for rust.

-- Will Honea