The transfer case seems fine. The lever goes into and out of 4hi and 4lo and I can feel the truck going into low gear. But the front wheels aren't engaging and the 4x4 light is not coming on.

And it's winter here. And snowing.

Help.

 

check the front axle area. There is 2 wires down on the vacum shift motor that may have gotte severed. It happened to me when i went through some high bursh.

 

Where is the vacuum shift motor?

 

found it, wiggled the wires (still connected) and rapped on the vacuum with a wrench. Shifts into 4WD now.....

 

Failing to shift into 4WD again. Looking for some input. How much vacuum should be pulled if I were to test the vac lines? I assume that the motor engages and once that happens, a switch is tripped sending the message via the wires up to the dash to turn the light on.
Where are the failure points on these? Is it the motor itself or the vac lines? Where do the vac lines start? My Haynes is pretty quiet on this whole apparatus...

 

The vacuum selector is on the Transfer case and run by the lever there. The lines come down from behind the engine to the transfer case and out to the front end along the passenger frame rail. The lines may be ruptured near the vacuum motor or the rubber lines near the transmission cross member.

 

Also the actuator itself is somewhat problematic, if you hit it with a wrench and it engaged you more likely than not are gonna need an actuator. They cost about $80 and it only takes about 45min to change. I searched on e-bay got a new $80 with free shipping.

 

I'm thinking (hoping) that if the lines were bad it wouldn't have started working after I rapped on the motor itself. Well, that's what I'm going with at the moment.

 

Vacuum motor housing actually had a rust hole in it. New vacuum motor. Problem solved. Hint, don't put the fork back in backward. It wont engage the axles.....

 

suggestion

posilock it and forget it...

 

I second the posilock suggestion. Best $200 and 4 hrs I ever spent (install could have been done in 2hrs but I was being super cautious).