Just curious Toyota transfer cases

[Dominic]

A friend at work was asking me how his 4 wheel drive works on his Tacoma. He is from Guatemala and there is small language barrier and I think we were getting confused talking it out. So I took him out in the snow and was walking him through hubs and such. My question is this is it normal for Toyota's to buck and lurch in H4? His truck is a 1998 Tacoma single cab with hubs. Manual trans and the transfer case has H2, H4, N, L4. The truck feels fine in H2 with the hubs in but as soon as you put it in H4 it bucks and chugs as you try to drive it. High 4wheel in my Jeep with the hubs in feels like normal driving and can do high speeds just fine. The little Toyota didn't feel like it would tolerate high speeds at all. What am I missing?
Thanks
Dominic

 

[BCGPER]

Sounds like mis-matched ratios in the diffs. Does he know the history of the truck?

 

[Dominic]

It's completely stock as far as I know, only has a 100,000 miles on it. I think he is the second owner, his son was the first owner.

 

[sixstringsteve]

Sounds like mis-matched ratios in the diffs.

x2. I had a samurai that did the exact same thing and it was mismatched diffs.

You're right, Toyotas (or any other 4x4) are not supposed to lurch in 4wd.

 

[iamsparticus]

its mismatched gears or something is binding bad and it binds and breaks loose over and over making it jerk like heck. its easy to check his ratios if thats fine id start pulling thirds and checking if something is broke

 

[Bart]

Have to agree with the gears. I bought a Chevy once that did that and it had 3.73s in the rear and 4.10s in the front.

 

[SLC97SR5]

Are all the tires the same size?