Do they mean grinding the detent slots deeper or changing their shape so the sticks don’t pop out of gear easily?
Here it is. To prevent cross shifting.
https://classicbroncos.com/forums/threads/grind-shift-rails-or-remove-pills-poll.208917/
Not exactly. The point of the interlock pills is to prevent cross shifting AND to prevent the transfer case from violating the shifting logic.
There are only 9 possible transfer case options:
1. Rear H, Front N
2. Rear H, Front H
3. Rear H, Front L
4. Rear N, Front N
5. Rear N, Front H
6. Rear N, Front L
7. Rear L, Front N
8. Rear L, Front H
9. Rear L, Front L
Of these, there are two that are not Logical, and are the cross shifting situation. These must be avoided at all times to prevent internal damage, and / or immobilization of the Bronco.
3. Rear H, Front L
8. Rear L, Front H
The interlock pills and rails are designed to prevent / avoid 3,5,6,7 &8. Leaving 1,2,4 &9 Which are the one's you know and love:
1. Rear H, Front N = 2Hi
2. Rear H, Front H = 4Hi
4. Rear N, Front N = N
9. Rear L, Front L = 4Lo
Lastly, there are three that are defeated via the design logic.
5. Rear N, Front H - This is called a High range front Dig.
6. Rear N, Front L - This is called a Low range front Dig.
7. Rear L, Front N - This is 2WD Low range.
So the debate distills down to the cost / benefit analysis to enable the 3 remaining modes that are not currently available.
5. Rear N, Front H - High Range front Dig. Also known as Front Wheel Drive. Who wants a front wheel drive Bronco? With single cardan axle shaft joints, and V8 power, they are unruly to drive aggressively on the road, with a lot of torque steer, and prone to self destruct. You can get some fairly dramatic front wheel drive burnouts, but pulling on the coast side of the ring gear is not optimal, and things break pretty fast. High speed driving with a limited slip and low traction is even more hairy. (but can be fun!) So I'm going to say "useless." If you really need it, you can always remove the rear driveshaft and yield the same result.
6. Rear N, Front L - Low range front Dig. This is kinda cool, and I've seen some interesting use cases from skilled operators in low speed maneuvers around obstacles.
@Yeller makes a compelling case.
7. Rear L, Front N - 2WD Low Range. -2Lo. Also useful, and sometimes cool...but easily achieved by simply shifting to 4hi, and unlocking a front hub. So while the use case is compelling, it is easily achieved in other ways. If you are running front drive slugs, then I can see where you might want to enable this feature in the transfer case shift logic.
It is super easy to enable ALL of the modes by leaving the interlock pills out. But to SELECTIVELY enable and disable modes requires twin sticks, and interlock rail grinding. Which is where
@JB Fab comes to the rescue. Because he has done all of the thinking to enable some modes and still prevent the evil ones.
Hope that helps.
