Dang Plastic Bushings
Well, it was finally my turn to find out about those bushings. And, like for others, it came at the most inopportune time.
We were in Branson MO. hooking up the JK (toad) to the motor home. I had all of the stuff hooked up and asked the wife to "do the neutral dance" as we call it and prep it for flat towing. She rolled down the window and informed me that we had a problem. The TC shifter just flopped back and forth - no resistance at all. That is when I realized what the problem was. I looked underneath and verified that the bushing was on the TC linkage, so I knew the issue was with the bushing inside the console. Dang. We were blocking the driveway to the RV park, so I tried to reach up there and shift it into neutral by hand. No luck. The Y-pipe was just too hot. So, we unhooked very quickly and the wife resigned herself to an 11 hour drive back home to Central Texas.
While driving, I had an idea. At our first stop in Arkansas, I hooked back up and was going to try once again to manually shift it into neutral. Failing that, I had the tools to pull both driveshafts. I have a long 1/2" breaker bar for the lug nuts on the motor home, and I was able to punch the lever one time and knock it into neutral. But, the force also knocked that plastic bushing loose and the loop fell off. Fine. Now I had two ends to work on when I got home.
Luckily, our son had dropped by when we pulled in (he had been checking on the cattle and the chickens) so he helped push the JK into the garage. I was able to make a loop of very sturdy wire (actually a coat hanger) and pull the shifter back into 2H.
I called the dealer the next morning. I was quoted over $15 per bushing. I gasped, and then laughed. The voice at the other end of the line then realized that they had "quoted the wrong price to me". In actuality - they were really only $9 each. I politely declined and ordered
a set of 6 from Amazon for $25.
They arrived very quickly (but not like overnight). I started on the lower one. Here is what I learned from that - it will save you time to just go ahead and remove the skid plate. I have one bad shoulder, so I just couldn't get my arm up there to where I could snap the bushing into place on the cable. The second thing I learned was that you can pull the cable all the way out (extend it fully - like to 4L) and that will give you more room to work. The next thing I learned was that a small dab of dielectric silicon grease will allow you to snap the bushing into the cable ring with only one good arm.
That done, I tackled the one inside the cabin next. I
did not have to remove the entire center console. Once I wrestled the TC shift knob off I could pull up the part held on only by the clips. I did not remove the transmission shift knob (six speed
manual transmission). I was able to see the end of the TC shift cable and the place where it snapped on. I used long, thin needle-nose pliers to pull the cable loop up. Again, a little dab of grease and it snapped right in. I then snapped the cable to the shift lever and popped everything back together again.
Done. And, I have four spares (by direction of the wife).
The 2011 JK Sahara is only showing 73K miles too. What a disappointment. I disagree with people saying that the bushings are designed to prevent you from tearing up your TC by shifting it incorrectly. If that was the case, why aren't the weaker NP231's in the YJ's and TJ's all destroyed with their solid shifter coupling? I think that it was just a way to speed up the assembly process. Our YJ at 92K miles hasn't ever refused to go into neutral for a spin behind the motor home. My other observation is that the transfer case in my wife's "pasture toy" (a 2002 Nissan Xterra) shifts extremely smoothly - light pressure on the shifter will send it effortlessly through all positions.