Boxes are bridges to fences

Awareness is kind of a problem.  See, we base all of our decisions on it, have no way to escape it without putting ourselves in some degree of danger, and arguably case to effectively exist in its absence.  The real fuck of the situation is that awareness is just a product of our constant internal comparison of pieces of information.  As though that's not enough, it's not even "true" information, since it's internally-recorded and based  on our recollection of that information.  It really amazes me that we're able to get anything done at all when I consider how much of a fundamental challenge to effective action that condition presents.

Even though navel gazing is a great way to figure out the most expedient way to talk out of your ass, I promise I have a real point to make here:

My transfer case only had about 3oz of fluid come out when I drained it.  

Seriously.  3oz is a lot less than the 2.5 pints it has the capacity to carry, and the groaning, hopping nastiness that I thought was the transmission dying, or the torque converter not being secured to the flexplate, or whatever other ideas I had started over 1,000 miles ago.  It's incredible that things worked at all.  It's also incredible that my tcase housing didn't fragment like a party popper on the highway or any of the thousands of steep-ass hills I traverse all day, every day.

And here's what that paragraph has to do with the one I started this update with:

It took a long damn time for me to figure out that the problems were coming from the tcase, due in no small part to my lack of familiarity with troubleshooting and investigation flows for 4WD/AWD machines.  Coupling that with the experiences I've had with the transmission in the past, I had a pretty large gap in my awareness of what was actually occurring.  As a result, this con/perceptual void kept me chasing what I knew of that could potentially explain the behavior I was encountering.

Form was brought forth from the void, though, when I lucked out and actually managed to get a good listen to the sound when it happened today. It was distinctly coming from under the car, where I knew the tcase to reside.  Once I got where I was going, I set about changing the fluid and just got done taking the first steps hill I've taken at a speed over 15mph in quite a while.  It felt effortless, I felt good about it, and I think things may be moving ahead without binding up.  It would've been nice to get this fixed much earlier in the game, but at least it happened before I lost the tcase while driving in traffic.

I guess that the end result is a pretty unpleasant experience may have been avoided, and this reminds me of how many problems are directly tied to shortcomings in awareness.  I'm just happy that the issue turned out to be one that I could discover a cause for, and the only barrier to doing it was my lack of information.  

This experience has kind of underscored my objection to opaque digital systems being a mandatory organ in all modern cars.  While my preference is to not have to do network/computer troubleshooting as part of vehicle maintenance and repair, my need to understand how to care and feed for over a ton of steel that is capable of traveling at 100+mph is even more important.  Proprietary digital controller systems are intentionally made to be voids in your awareness.  This is why you have to pay through the nose to get software upgrades and other intangibles that sometimes play a very important part in ensuring the vehicle is operating safely or at all.  No auto manufacturer will give you the documentation on the circuits and code that make up your vehicle's *CM, and it's impractical to impossible for most people to get that information from any alternative source.

If some people end up getting their way, it'll eventually be impossible or illegal to repair or modify your own vehicle.  Hell, you most likely won't even be able to even drive it yourself, despite it costing you two or more years worth of your annual income.  The future sucks.