This is my first time to the forums here and hopefully someone can point me in the right direction of what I should do with my Jeep.

I was driving on the highway lastweek for about 1.5hrs going about 110-130km/h when I started to smell a really nasty burning smell and the car eventully slowed down to 100km/h. When I tried to accelerate the whole car shook and it felt like something blew off the back. When I looked in my rearview I could see flames coming out the back of my Jeep like the batmobile. I quickly pulled over and got away from the car. In the end it ended up the rear dif had a hole blown right through it from the inside out. I got a replacement dif from a wrecker and now the Jeep seems fine except.

It smells alittle like propane or natural gas inside when I drive it and the screen says "service 4wd switch" (its allways said this, but now it worries me) aswell as "coolant sensor bad", "rear lamp failure" and, "windshield fluid low" but I know how to fix that. :wink:

Any ideas on what I should go about doing to getting this thing back up and running perfectly?

Maybe when your diff went it put a hole in your exhaust? :dunno: take a good look at your exhaust and see.

All the other stuff sounds pretty straightforward, except maybe the service 4wd switch.

Is it throwing any codes?

I know I read somwhere about the codes but I am not sure about how to get them can you explain how I can get it to gimme these codes. Thanx.

I did a search on this forum and found:


Turn the key to ON-OFF-ON-OFF-ON within a few seconds and then watch for the Check Engine light to flash. Count the flashes and pauses and record them (they should be 2 digit numbers).

Then post the numbers, once they're up there will be more to work with.

The "service 4WD Switch" message can be caused by a bad 4WD mode switch or lack of fluid in the transfer case.

Well I got the codes and all it came up with are 12 and 55. I also think I experience this "DEATH WOBBLE" that one of the other posts is talking about. Damn cars.

The "service 4WD Switch" message can be caused by a bad 4WD mode switch or lack of fluid in the transfer case.


And there you go. The 12 code (from http://www.allpar.com/fix/80s-codes.html

reads: 12 Battery or computer recently disconnected


So if you didn't recently disconnect anything, check your connections.

The "service 4wd switch" is triggered inside the transfer case. There is a little metal tab that gets bent if you jam the 4wd selector lever into 4wd or 2wd or 4lo too hard. It has nothing to do with the operation of the vehicle however, The easiest way to get the light off is to unplug the switch at the transfer case. Or you could dissassemble the transfer case and bend the tab back into position.

I have also seen in some other posts that other people have had the same trouble with the switch light coming on. It was said that the monitoring system is the trouble. The trouble codes that you got are nothing, 12 is basicly saying that the computer is working, 55 says end of check. Many people have just let the warning light stay on as the fix is very expensive.