soyjer
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- California
1999 XJ, 98K easy (street-only) miles, 4.0L, AW4, Chrysler 8.25
With your XJ at a standstill, please try shifting into Drive from Reverse both WITH a pause in Neutral and WITHOUT a pause in Neutral, and let me know which gives you a smoother (even slightly) shift into Drive?
I (and several professional XJ and transmission experts) have now spent over a year trying to diagnose my XJ's "clunk/lurch when shifting into Drive at a standstill" problem (see below link if you want the gory details), and I now believe that the key to knowing whether it is the transmission or differential lies with whether or not "normal" XJ's make this shift smoother WITH a pause in Neutral or WITHOUT a pause in Neutral.
Mine makes this shift very smoothly if I do NOT pause in Neutral, but if I DO pause in Neutral then the clunk/lurch into Drive is comparatively rather violent.
The only explanation that I can come up with for this behavior would be that, when in Neutral, the input half of the transmission rotates freely at approximately the rpm of the engine, whereas when in Reverse, the input half of the transmission is held stationary by the stationary rear wheels on the ground, and so when in Neutral the input shaft has rotational momentum that causes the clunk/lurch when shifted into Drive, whereas when there is NO pause in Neutral then there is NO rotational momentum, and so there is no clunk/lurch when shifted into Drive.
But in order for this theory to be true, then ALL XJ's at a standstill must ALSO shift from Reverse into Drive smoother (even just a little bit) WITHOUT a pause in Neutral than WITH a pause in Neutral.
If ALL XJ's behave this this way, then my transmission is functioning 100% normally, and it is merely a loose differential that is amplifying this behavior in my XJ.
On the other hand, if pausing in Neutral does NOT result in a slightly harsher shift in normal XJ's than not pausing in Neutral, then my theory is bogus, and then that casts suspicion back onto my transmission, on which a complete professional rebuild didn't solve the problem.
If I could get the answer to my question here, and if it confirms that ALL XJ's behave this way (only to a lesser degree), then I will just have to assume that all of the experts were wrong about my differential, and pay one of them to look inside of it, even though they are saying that doing so is a waste of time.
https://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1146705&page=3
With your XJ at a standstill, please try shifting into Drive from Reverse both WITH a pause in Neutral and WITHOUT a pause in Neutral, and let me know which gives you a smoother (even slightly) shift into Drive?
I (and several professional XJ and transmission experts) have now spent over a year trying to diagnose my XJ's "clunk/lurch when shifting into Drive at a standstill" problem (see below link if you want the gory details), and I now believe that the key to knowing whether it is the transmission or differential lies with whether or not "normal" XJ's make this shift smoother WITH a pause in Neutral or WITHOUT a pause in Neutral.
Mine makes this shift very smoothly if I do NOT pause in Neutral, but if I DO pause in Neutral then the clunk/lurch into Drive is comparatively rather violent.
The only explanation that I can come up with for this behavior would be that, when in Neutral, the input half of the transmission rotates freely at approximately the rpm of the engine, whereas when in Reverse, the input half of the transmission is held stationary by the stationary rear wheels on the ground, and so when in Neutral the input shaft has rotational momentum that causes the clunk/lurch when shifted into Drive, whereas when there is NO pause in Neutral then there is NO rotational momentum, and so there is no clunk/lurch when shifted into Drive.
But in order for this theory to be true, then ALL XJ's at a standstill must ALSO shift from Reverse into Drive smoother (even just a little bit) WITHOUT a pause in Neutral than WITH a pause in Neutral.
If ALL XJ's behave this this way, then my transmission is functioning 100% normally, and it is merely a loose differential that is amplifying this behavior in my XJ.
On the other hand, if pausing in Neutral does NOT result in a slightly harsher shift in normal XJ's than not pausing in Neutral, then my theory is bogus, and then that casts suspicion back onto my transmission, on which a complete professional rebuild didn't solve the problem.
If I could get the answer to my question here, and if it confirms that ALL XJ's behave this way (only to a lesser degree), then I will just have to assume that all of the experts were wrong about my differential, and pay one of them to look inside of it, even though they are saying that doing so is a waste of time.
https://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1146705&page=3