Please send me your old ZF transmission pan and filter

[Clark Kent]

OK I have loosened the shifter by manipulating it about 50 times.
Yet despite two hands on the shifter and moving it from L to H in 1mm increments it will not nail Goldilocks. It just suddenly slips into H.
Not something you want in an emergency and hence the option to remotely unlock the ZF remains on the table.
This might just be an issue for MY23 Grenadiers, I don't know, wouldn't know why. Has anyone with a MY23 been able to find the sweet spot, and if so 1 or 2 hands on the knob?
Don't be dirty!

I have a hot date booked with my vehicle tomorrow morning (diffs, TC and engine oil + filter change). I'll have a play with this and post back.

 

[TD5-90]

Has anyone with a MY23 been able to find the sweet spot, and if so 1 or 2 hands on the knob?

Rather: No. As already said.
No stable N, minimal movement of the stick (without even touching it) causes grinding.
"-B" transfer case.
May be related to that cables...

 

[Texas Grenadier]

So, back to “Please send me your old ZF transmission pan and filter"? lol.

 

[Tazzieman]

So, back to “Please send me your old ZF transmission pan and filter"? lol.

Threads go offtrack. It's the nature of the beast

 

[Clark Kent]

I have a hot date booked with my vehicle tomorrow morning (diffs, TC and engine oil + filter change). I'll have a play with this and post back.

Ok. It's super sensitive on my MY23 but I got there. I can't say if it's any different to other MY. Probably more about the lack of use of my range shifter than MY specific.
If I rely on feeling for the mid travel/neutral point I'll miss it. The short travel and sticky controls puts me into HIGH or LOW range. You cannot be half-pregnant, right?

I found a cheat mode

Have the key on and watch the GEAR display on the infotainment screen. Slowly ease back on the shifter towards LOW range. Imagine your partner is watching you at the tool shop counter. No sudden moves. As soon as the HIGH caption disappears stop moving the shifter. Now wait a second. The TRANSFER CASE IN NEUTRAL message will then display because the transfer case is not in HIGH or LOW. It's in the 'tween position, which is neutral.

The L is flashing on the telltale panel at this point. The sensor in the transfer case can see it is not in HIGH anymore but it's not yet in LOW either so the control logic treats it as an error via the amber message TRANSFER CASE IN NEUTRAL. That's useful for our purpose.
On my vehicle I can hear light gear contact when I push it in neutral so it's very close to engaging into LOW range. I would not be moving my vehicle too far at more than a crawl pace until the neutral stop screw was applied. Your vehicle might be different.

So to put that into practice:
If you have power you can use the lights and message display as an aid to finding neutral.
If you're fully in Weekend At Bernie's mode without any power then it's gonna be a bit more work. Practice with the lights on until you can do it in the dark

Without the benefit of the cheat lights, and if you can't move your vehicle to test it, you won't 100% know you're in neutral until you start recovery and watch the wheels. If they're dragging you are not in neutral

 

[Dokatd]

Ok. It's super sensitive on my MY23 but I got there. I can't say if it's any different to other MY. Probably more about the lack of use of my range shifter than MY specific.
If I rely on feeling for the mid travel/neutral point I'll miss it. The short travel and sticky controls puts me into HIGH or LOW range. You cannot be half-pregnant, right?

I found a cheat mode

Have the key on and watch the GEAR display on the infotainment screen. Slowly ease back on the shifter towards LOW range. Imagine your partner is watching you at the tool shop counter. No sudden moves. As soon as the HIGH caption disappears stop moving the shifter. Now wait a second. The TRANSFER CASE IN NEUTRAL message will then display because the transfer case is not in HIGH or LOW. It's in the 'tween position, which is neutral.

The L is flashing on the telltale panel at this point. The sensor in the transfer case can see it is not in HIGH anymore but it's not yet in LOW either so the control logic treats it as an error via the amber message TRANSFER CASE IN NEUTRAL. That's useful for our purpose.
On my vehicle I can hear light gear contact when I push it in neutral so it's very close to engaging into LOW range. I would not be moving my vehicle too far at more than a crawl pace until the neutral stop screw was applied. Your vehicle might be different.

So to put that into practice:
If you have power you can use the lights and message display as an aid to finding neutral.
If you're fully in Weekend At Bernie's mode without any power then it's gonna be a bit more work. Practice with the lights on until you can do it in the dark

Without the benefit of the cheat lights, and if you can't move your vehicle to test it, you won't 100% know you're in neutral until you start recovery and watch the wheels. If they're dragging you are not in neutral

Glad you sorted it out. I do think that there is a fair bit of stretch to the cable setup as you use it. Probably makes the neutral gate feel a bit wider.

 

[Clark Kent]

Glad you sorted it out. I do think that there is a fair bit of stretch to the cable setup as you use it. Probably makes the neutral gate feel a bit wider.

I enjoy a good collaboration where we all learn something.
I think we've nearly exhausted this topic. It's produced something useful and given @Rok_Dr some material to work with. I'll shortly reach out to an admin and ask to move all this chatter to a dedicated topic so @scottg can get back to his ZF oil pan project.

 

[Tazzieman]

@Clark Kent I've managed it. But with the engine on it was harder (with some gear noise) than in carwash mode.
After the TRANSFER CASE IN NEUTRAL warning I then got ESC warnings as well. But I think I'm now in a position to put the TC into N position if needed.
And as you noted , the line ""Position the transfer case selector midwaybetween LOW and HIGH range" is in the updated owner's manual.

 

[scottg]

That's the gist.
One small correction: The goal is to set the transmission into neutral via this lever but only if you cannot access the neutral screw on the transfer case - which remains the preferred and approved method. Two separate methods. If you cannot access the transfer case neutral screw due to environmental then getting your hand onto the parking pawl lever is probably a no-go as well, hence the remote kit.

We're a fair way down the "it's-5pm-and-today-has-really-gone-to-$hit" list if you actually need to do this but it might be enough to drag your vehicle out of a river before you need to phone a friend who knows something about rivers and drowned engines. No names, please.

Hey @scottg. Sorry this has taken your ZF pan thread off track. It's kinda relevant-ish.

I didn't realize a request for ZF pans would trigger all this, no worries, kind of my fault, it should probably be its own thread and I should have posted the neutral options in a separate thread. I think it is a design flaw that the ZF cannot be put in neutral without power, or at least a way to manually put the ZF into neutral from inside the cabin, or at the very least not have to crawl under the vehicle to do this.

 

[scottg]

The neutral stop screw on the TC is the only method published by IA to disengage the drivetrain of a disabled vehicle so it can be recovered. This assumes the transmission cannot be placed into neutral or car wash mode - both of which require electrical power. If the vehicle is bellied out or stuck in a river the neutral stop screw may be inaccessible.
On other 8HPxx equipped vehicles the go-to method to move a disabled vehicle is to operate the parking pawl release lever on the side of the transmission. On some vehicles the manufacturer provides a remote release cable so this can be done from inside the cabin. That's how LR do it on some RR and Discos.

This side chat acknowledges that the parking pawl release lever exists on Grenadier and may offer a backup (unpublished) method to unlock the drivetrain if the TC screw is inaccessible. This lever is no more accessible than the TC neutral screw but unlike the TC screw kits exist to provide remote access to operate the lever which could be of benefit in some recovery situations.
The TC would be spinning the transmission output shaft while the vehicle is being moved so it could only be done at low speed for the minimum distance required to recover the vehicle because the trans is not making pressure for lubrication. That's the same for other 8HP equipped vehicles so clearly ZF are ok with it for this scenario.

This is in parallel to determining if the TC can be held in a mid-range neutral position long enough to enable recovery without risk of damage to the TC because there is no neutral position or mid-travel detent to prevent a gear clash if the lever moves into HI or LO while the vehicle is being moved.

The owners manual advises to operate the neutral stop screw for transportation, flat towing and recovery.
Interestingly, in the latest edition it also says to place the TC select lever into a mid-travel position before operating the neutral screw.

View attachment 7917280

Well that is interesting. If the neutral screw on the TC is all that's needed, why now is it essentially required to put the TC shifter in between H and L before using the neutral bolt? Finding the 'in-between H and L' was not easy and really isn't very concise. What happens to the TC if you leave it in H or L and only adjust the neutral bolt? My gut says the manual's been updated because the neutral bolt wasn't enough in some circumstances. Maybe the TC gears need to be in a synced position first, and if you can't get the shifter in between properly, the bolt is not enough? Or maybe you can't get the shifter to an in-between (neutral) state if the gears aren't 'synced' and you need the vehicle moved a bit to get them synced? Caveat here that I'm no expert, but if I can put the shifter between H and L and the console and ECM recognize that the TC is in neutral as a result, then it seems there could be a 'groove' in the shifter and an "N" printed on it to put the TC in neutral with the shifter alone. Why is the neutral bolt needed then?

 

[scottg]

But who cares about disengaging the parking pawl if you can set the T-case in neutral from the cab quickly and easily. Especially if you have to modify the truck to instal a manual parking pawl kit. The truck already achieves what you are looking for without modification.

I don't think it matters if it's the ZF or the TC you put into neutral -- the critical requirement is to disengage the drive shafts from the transmission in whatever way works so you don't do damage because the ZF is in park setting when you're moving the vehicle and the wheels are turning. If the TC is in neutral, the ZF can remain in park and you're good to move the vehicle. If the ZF is in neutral and the TC is fully engaged, that's also fine. Am I wrong about that? It's the ZF we're trying to protect in these situations, right? The core issue here is the ZF can't be put into neutral via the ZF shifter without power available, and not even that, the engine has to be running -- I couldn't shift the ZF into neutral while in accessory mode. Though, with engine running, putting ZF in neutral, then turning off the engine and IMMEDIATELY going into ACC mode with the key will force the ZF to remain in neutral, for some amount of time, but wasn't specified how long that was. I need to try that experiment.

 

[scottg]

But again you can do it from the cab with the T-case lever.

Not reliably, and not without risk of it slipping out of that neutral spot in some way. At least so far my experiments show it very difficult to find that neutral position with the TC shifter, only was able to get the console to show TC was in neutral a couple of times after many attempts.

 

[scottg]

As I recall (manual not presently to hand) the first step in the Ineos-defined process is to put the lever in the mid (neutral) position before operating the screw on the transfer box (hence my deduction that the function of the screw is only to lock the selector).

If someone could devise a method to lock the lever within the cab once neutral was selected I see no reason why this would be less robust than Ineos's recommended method.

I'll check my manual tomorrow, rumor has it that putting the TC in neutral (how do you know you're in neutral for sure without console saying so?) before going for the neutral bolt is a new part of the instructions. Again, it's strange to me why there isn't a neutral TC position marked on the shifter, and a groove where you know it's in neutral even without power or console showing you so.

 

[scottg]

Rather: No. As already said.
No stable N, minimal movement of the stick (without even touching it) causes grinding.
"-B" transfer case.
May be related to that cables...

I have an MY25, maybe there is a difference in the cabling that makes it harder or impossible for MY23 and/or MY24s to get the TC in neutral via the TC shifter.

 

[Tazzieman]

S

I have an MY25, maybe there is a difference in the cabling that makes it harder or impossible for MY23 and/or MY24s to get the TC in neutral via the TC shifter.

See my post #88 above. It's much easier to find the N position in carwash mode.
MY23

 

[Greasemonkey]

I tried both solutions. Both work. In car wash mode, however, the engine has to be running beforehand. This isn't the case in the emergency mode described by Clark Kent. Yesterday, I managed several times, with just the ignition on, to move the Hi/Lo lever to a position where the warning "Car in Neutral" appeared on the display. I then got out and was able to push the vehicle by hand. Afterwards, I tried to push the Hi/Lo lever back to the Hi position, but I couldn't quite get it all the way in. When I tried to push the vehicle again, I noticed that the wheels were now locked and I could hear a short click in the transmission.
To move the Hi/Lo lever completely back to the Hi position, I had to start the engine. After that, it worked without any problems.

With my Disco 3 and its ZF 6-speed automatic transmission, I once experienced a situation where someone parked in so tightly that I couldn't get in through the side doors. I had to climb into the vehicle from the back. I was able to turn on the ignition, but I couldn't reach the brake lever from the rear to shift into neutral. So I used the rear sunshade cover as a stick and pressed the brake pedal. Now I could shift into neutral. Afterwards, I pushed the car out of the parking space by hand from the front so I could get back in.

It wouldn't have been so easy with the INEOS.