How do you remove the shifter from the transfer case on a Suzuki Samurai?

Answer 1

It's been a few years since I've done this but I can give you a general idea. (I put over 250K miles on my samurai, my kid put over 180K on his, and I used to work on other friends' samurais as well, so I've pulled transmissions and transfer cases probably a dozen or more times.) The transfer case shifter is easier to remove than the transmission, if I remember correctly. But do you even really need to remove the shifter at all? If you are removing the transfer case in order to pull back the transmission to do a clutch job, for example, you probably don't need to pull the transfer case shifter...you can unscrew the shifter knob, unscrew the bolts around the rubber shield, and pull the rubber shield up off the transfer case shifter. At that point you can probably unbolt and remove the transfer case from under the car...3 (14mm?) bolts hold the transfer case to the frame, but of course you would have to remove the 3 driveshafts (4 bolts each on flanges) first. Unplug the electrical wiring to the transfer case (lights up the 4WD light inside) and you can just drop the case itself. BUT, if you REALLY want to remove the transfer shifter, unscrew the shifter knob, unbolt the rubber shield, pull that up off the knob, There are 3 small bolts holding the base of the shifter onto the transmission case. Take them out and the shifter should pull out I may be confusing the transmission shifter with the transfer case shifter. Both start out the same way, but ONE of them(transfer case) you have to push down on the shifter and twist it maybe a 1/4 turn, to the left I think....that will release it and then it pulls right out. It's a lot easier to remove it than when working backwards and putting it back in...getting it lined up, pushed down, and twisted can be a bit of a handful at times, but keep working at it and you can get it done. One other VERY COMMON shifting thing(transmission)...there is a small 10mm bolt with a narrowed tip,(also known as gear locator) that bolts through the flange on the transmission shifter housing, from the back. The narrow tip fits into a groove on the ball at the bottom of the transmission shifter. WHEN (notice I say WHEN and not IF) the tip of this bolt breaks, your transmission shifter will wiggle like crazy...floping around all over the place, making it just about impossible to figure out what gear it is in as it flops all over in EVERY gear. It is a VERY easy fix. remove the bolt I described. Either buy the real replacement from Suzuki or one of the aftermarket Suzuki places, or, take a new 10mm bolt(10x18.4) , and grind the threads off the last 1/4 inch of it so it has a narrow tip that will fit in the shifter groove. Bolt it back in and you're on your way. Note if the tip of the original broke all the way off it might have dropped all the way down into your transmission. Do you feel lucky? In a perfect world if the tip is missing you should probably pull the transmission apart, find it, and remove it before it breaks gears. But the gasket kit for the transmission was about $250 last time I bought one...so I would probably let it go. But then when I had Samurais there were still a lot of them around, so worse comes to worse I'd hit the junkyard and buy replacement used components. Now they are harder to find so you may want to take a more conservative approach. Sammy's are GREAT! Put a 4:1 transfer case kit in em, rebuild the axles with Geo Tracker center sections, and add a locker: That's how mine was eventually setup, running 31" tires on stock rims, with a homemade 3" body lift so everything would clear. I'd air the tires down to about 8psi and the little thing would go ANYWHERE. It was just a pain keeping it CA Smog legal. Have fun, hope this rambling helped.