My transmission has a huge crack in it, why?

I was under my jeep this weekend and found that my AW4 tranny had a severe crack in the bellhousing. The crack is over 6 inches long, it starts below the starter and continues up towards the top of the bellhousing.

Why did this happen? I did not beat on my jeep TOO bad (that I can remember)

I have a strange suspicion that this is why everyone else replaces their motor mounts?

Any ideas???

My next post will be in the NAC classified looking to buy a tranny

Are you the original owner? Your Jeep may have been in an accident previously. Your on the right track with the motor mount thing, although I don't think every day usage will crack it like that. It probably took one hard hit at some point and it started cracking, and bad motor mounts made it worse.

I shattered the bellhousing on my AW-4 out in Moab back in 2001. I realized after-the-fact that it was already cracked. A bad CV shaft failure on the drive out there, and a good bounce off of Dump Bump cracked mine into 5 pieces.

You can replace JUST the belhousing, thats what I had to do out there to make the 2300 mile drive home. My tranny only had 45,000 miles on it though, so it was worth it for me to do it this way. I MAY have a bellhousing you can use, if your interested, let me know.

A.

Just got done with this problem. My BH was actually missing chunks, including the top mount point of the starter. I bought the XJ as a project, and what a project it has been.
While investigating the solution, I stumbled across the problem's. The P.O. had broken both U joints at the yokes. at some point he had some transmission "work" done. Who ever did the work, never bolted the tranny back to the crossmember, so it was sliding all over the place. I was missing 2 out of the four bolts connecting the AW4 to the 4.0. The leaking rear main made it all very messy. Not good. They also had rigged the starter via bailing wire to the passenger LCA to keep it at the right pitch to start the thing.
I replaced the bell housing, flywheel, starter, CPS, and rear main while I was there. It was a pain in the butt! searching for the right bolt sizes, correct flywheel, etc., etc.. It wasn't that expensive for all the parts, just extremely labor intensive.

I would definately check your crossmember bushing to see if it is deteriorating. Motor mounts going also makes sense, and I may have to check mine while Im at it.

Good luck!

I found a AW4 from a fellow jeeper, but his jeep was T-boned. Should i not buy it because it was T-boned? I will check it for visible cracks.

I blew the motor in my Jeep a few weeks ago, when I pulled the motor out I found this.. ...other than being in two pieces it had other cracks starting as well.

mine looked just like that haha