I'd appreciate a little info from some of you syncro owners.

Yesterday I test drove an '86 westy syncro, which I'm probably going to buy, but I'm not completely clear on how the 4WD is supposed to work. A few things about it seem a little quirky, and it doesn't have a manual for the syncro stuff. I don't have any previous experience with syncros, other than a short drive once in a '90 owned by a neighbor.

When I first got into the '86 the knob for the locking differential was pulled out. My reaction was "oh, someone left the differential locked". It turns out it works backwards from what I expected -- you push it in to engage. Do I remember the '90 being different from the '86?

In any case, the real question here concerns the fact that when you disengage the lock by pulling out the knob, it sometimes took quite a while -- say 5 or 6 seconds -- before the lock would actually release. Should I suspect a vacuum leak somewhere, or this normal? Why does it release immediately sometimes and not others?

There are 3 green indicator lights above the knob, that apparently are to tell you when various locks are engaged. The one for the rear differential works fine when you push in the knob, but the other two never seem to light up. I'm assuming the front one is for a front differential lock, which I understand no U.S. models have anyway. The center one I'm guessing is to tell me when the front drive is being automatically engaged. Am I right about that?

During the test drive I took it to a very steep, rather soft dirt embankment that it did a very good job of scaling, but in thinking about it later I realized that the middle green light didn't go on. It very well could just be a problem with the light itself, but it made me wonder how to really confirm that the front wheell drive is working? I imagine if I went back up the hill a few more times I'd be able to tell by the feel, but at this point just having the rear differential locked is already such a different feel for me, that I'm not completely certain that it was indeed in 4 wheel drive. Is there any easy way to determine if it really is working?

Thanks in advance for any info on this.

John Dilworth '83 Westy '86 Westy Syncro hopefully