Transmission slips on ZJ

[superles]

I have a buddy that had a vibration in the front of his ZJ. He removed the front drive shaft for testing purposes and went for a drive. On his return trip the tranny started to slip and has never done this before. Any ideas............

98/360/Quatratrac/fulltime

[LifesGrand]

It's very hard on the tc & vicious coupler to to be driving around without the front driveshaft connected for one thing on the 249 t-case.
Did this seem to happen afterwards on the way back or was the tranny slipping the whole duration of the drive?
Keep in mind that even though the front driveshaft is removed, power is being distributed to the front regardless & without the front wheels to help grab concrete, your only providing partial power the the rear wheels causing more stress on the t-case to get you going the way it felt with it connected.
As a suggestion, you may want to join jeepforum . com & search the archives as there are several write-ups that may relate or pertain to your particular issue.
I would search tranny slipping, vicious coupler & front driveshaft removed???
I'm no expert, but I hope this bit of info will get you started...

[WhiteOut]

Really simple test for the 249 VC.  Turn the Jeep with the wheels at full lock, if the front wheels skip and hop, then the VC is bad.  TBH, if the VC is bad its gonna be cheaper to get a 242 and swap it on rather than get the VC fixed.  I assume that he has 4hi N and 4lo on the tc shifter bezel?

[cLAY]

Its bad to drive a quadra trac without the front driveshaft. The slipping you felt was the viscous coupler in the t-case "slipping". Put the driveshaft back in. The tranny is fine.

[superles]

thanks for your comments and input,  much appreciated. i will let my buddy know what you had to say.