Towing a Jimny, is the owners manual wrong?

Byt the way: later models gear boxes have closed bearings with green and blue plastic sides so they wouldn't benefit (much) from the circulating oil for lubrication anyways.
After 2009 or so they came with closed up bearings inside.

But there is also the cooling effect of the circulating oil. Could be that upper bearings in the case would overheat from lack of oil circulating inside..

Read some where that when a Jimny was towed long distance behind an RV the chap disconnected the prop shaft --- sounds a bit extreme to me.

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jimkyx wrote: Read some where that when a Jimny was towed long distance behind an RV the chap disconnected the prop shaft --- sounds a bit extreme to me.

It's only 4 bolts, but I agree it would be a nuisance. Easier than changing the gearbox though. Easier still would be to buy a small car trailer to put the Jimny on. Then you can tow it legally without the hassle of an A-frame, connecting up the braking system and not being able to reverse.

Why did you have to mention A frames?

When the crank pulley fell apart on mine, the Nice Man from the AA just used that spectacle thing to lift the back wheels and took me home. I didn't need to say anything, apart from "let me just check we are in 2wd" - you never know, when you are broken down in traffic you might accidentally knock the lever......

The bearings that wear would be the plain bushes inside the gears on the mainshaft, doubt if it would really be a problem for a few miles.

I had started the same kind of topic a while ago, and yes we came to the conclusion which Busta has nicely explained (input shaft and lubrication talk).

I wrote a wiki article this morning about this entire topic.

If anyone has anything to add (or to correct) there, please do so.


One thing puzzles me though.
I have the user manuals for all but the most recent Jimny revisions, from type 1 from 1999 to type 9 from 2012.
Types 1, 2, 3 and 4 are with lever operated transfer box.
Types 5 and newer are with push button operated transfer box.


The user manuals for all push-button Jimnys (2005+) contain the same restrictive rules for towing.
The first two types (1 from 1999 and type 2 from 2001) have no mentioning of towing a Jimny at all in the user manuals. The entire sub-chapter of towing a Jimny is completely absent from user manuals for those early types 1 and 2.

However, types 3 and 4 (from 2002 and 2004) contain the same restrictive rules as the push-button types (only the pictures in the procedures are different, as you operate 4WD with a lever instead of buttons).

Since types 3 and 4 (should) have the same transfer box and the gear box as type 1 and 2, what the heck could be all that different between them to justify the introduction of those rules for types 3 and 4?

Or could it be that even types 1 and 2 are susceptible to those rules as well, but that Suzuki just had not thought of those issues before 2002?


By the way, when did the R72 gearbox "arrive"? Was is at the same time with the push button transfer box or was it before?