When I am in 2 wheel it works fine. When I shift to 4x4 there is something wrong. I have the electronic shift and it says everything switched over ok. When in 4x4 and I accelerate very slow no problem, but very slow is way to slow. When I accelerate normally there is some clunking noise underneath the truck. Any ideas what the problem is?

Thanks

 

How many miles on the truck ?
The 1st 2 things that come to mind are , u-joints and maybe its not going completely into gear , some maintance , the shifter at the ft. axial can get sticky and not move freely .
Have some one drive while you look under for where the noise is coming from.

 

Truck has 160,000 miles on it.

 

does the noise stop after a minute or so?

When was the last time you locked it in?

 

The last time is was locked in was last week. It was working fine and then it just started doing this. (last week) I can't remember the time before that that I had it locked in. Maybe sometime when there was snow on the ground. It is a clunking noise. I stopped using it because I didn't know what it was. It doesn't sound like anything good.

 

Check the CV joint on the front drive shaft.

 

If you're on pavement, it will clunk. If not, unlikely that it's your U-joints. Could be loose chain inside the transfer case. You should have someone stand outside and lean down when it happens to listen to see exactly where the sound comes from. I had that happen in my Durango - chain driven t-case with stretched chain. I also had it happen to my lifted jeep due to too much angle on the driveline (you don't have that problem), and any time I put it in 4WD on pavement.

 

I know about the whole problem of being on dry pavement and everything and this is deffinetly not it. I just need to get someone to stand outside the truck. I thought it might be one of the joints, but just by looking at them it doesn't look like they are broken.

 

Where in Wis. are you ? I'm near Stillwater .

 

Fond du Lac

 

What do you suppose would make the chain in the transfer case stretch. I beleave this is my problem. Going to take it apart tonight hopefully.

 

Same problem my dad had in his truck. Chain in transfer case was stretched. He bought his truck with 96k on the clock, I came home one weekend and he had it, so I drove it back home for the week to check everything out for him (he is 80). Find out that the chain in the transfer case is bad at an in-opportune time. Take it back to him with 98k on the clock, and we take it to the dealer, and they fix it for him, $200 charge for labor. Got out pretty good I say.

 

First off let me say I HATE Electronic 4-wheel Drive. Same thing but a much smaller scale, my mother inlaw has push button 4-wheel drive on her small pick up, It just wouldn't engauge. After a small amount of convincing (with a large hammer) I managed to get it working again. Told her to use it atleast once a month, or anytime she hits a gravel road and thinks about it. I also do that on my truck I use it atleast 2 times a month. My Dakota had an extreme problem with chains in the case. I found that I was getting a very slow fluid leak at the front pump seal (on each of the 3 T-Cases that I put in the thing) and that was not helping the chain very much. Not sure if any of this helps but just what I have come across with push button 4-wheel drive and chain driven cases.

Oh, I also did have to rebuild the front drive shaft ant the CV Joint. I think it cost about 60 bucks or so.

 

Would having slightly different sized tires on the front and back do this?

Driving around with an empty bed, look how much the front tires are squished by the weight of the engine compared to the back.

Throw in non regular rotation, and you'll have two sets of different sized tires,
just slight enough that you don't notice but the transfer case does.


phox

 

The tires only have about 6,000 miles on them. But I can see what your saying about not having a load in the back. The front tires really don't squate though. I would think DC would build a truck that didn't need a load in it. But you know DC.