Using Crawl Control ended up costing me $1100 in broken parts.

Does the TRD-Pro come with a nipple skid!? ;-) I agree that stuff breaks going off road but putting easily breakable items where they are vulnerable and that can result in a single point failure of the entire damn truck is just bad engineering. Sorry. Toyota - hope you see this and correct potential fatal flaw in future gens.

 

Don't know.

Us Pro owners can't be bothered to bend down and look what's underneath. We have already bent over enough

My Pro only goes to mall and office. If I wanted to go off road, I would buy a real truck like a Frontier or Ridgeline

 

You're kidding right????? This is Toyota we are talking about here..... A good portion of the threads in the 3rd Gen forums are carry over problems from the 2nd Gen - for example kazoo windshield noise, squeaky clutch, drive line vibration to name a few.

 

since the fail part is plastic, why not just print another one on the trusty 3D printer?

 

Yeah and that's what probably makes owning a 3rd gen frustrating. You have a few carry over issues and more to pile on top of those.

 

How close is this part to the tires? Isn't the diff fairly centered? Seems that hammering the truck into a pile of sand would drive it up there pretty good, but I am just not envisioning sand being pushed back from the tires at low speed breaking even that plastic part.

 

Just behind the front center jack point. It's centered and you can see it from beneath.

My guess is that the breather nipple broke off before the issue was observed and that sand/water/moisture worked it's way into the actuator.

Here's what a 2nd gen actuator looks like inside:




The breather tube port is right by the dude's thumb in this pic. The gear is in close proximity to the breather, as are the contacts which I can only assume are used indicate the position of the shift fork. I can see how sand could have jammed the gear up or blocked the contacts.

 

So 3rd gen frames will rust too ?!

 

So OP said he couldn't get out of 4-low, how does this actuator work? What does it disengage or engage? It is similar to old locking style hubs? As in it locks the axles to the wheels so they no longer free spin. I'm just curious and I want to know how the 4wd works. Its not like my older truck which was lock hubs and throw lever into 4-Low.

 

The electric motor drives the worm gear set which moves the shift fork left and right. The shift fork moves a sleeve that engages the front wheels.

 

Over-engineered...sometimes having all of those extra gadgets doesn't pay off.

 

Thanks!

 

Is that a bottle of lube on the right? Is it for when they hand you the bill?

 

Ok after reviewing the videos. The front axle actuator engages one axle which is similar to other 4wd applications out there. But even engaged it still is just an open diff with spider gears.

So rather than having to get towed 300 miles home couldn't the OP have just put it in 4 high? Or maybe electronics. In which case removing the front drive line would have worked too. Or would the T-case still been in low range because of electronics? In which case just drive home slowly because that t-case is going to get hot.

 

You can pull the covers of the actuators and manually spin the gear to disengage the front axle. Then you can do the same to the actuator on the t-case to get it out of 4-low. The computer system likely wouldn't have done anything because it sees that the front actuator is messed up, so the system just shutdown and throws an error.

This is the reason there is a lot of interest in going to the FJ t-case (stick shift) and wiring the front actuator to a switch independent of the computer. Gives you a lot more control in situations like this. There is also a member on here who developed manual lock hubs for the 2nd gen.

 

I don't understand what keeps the transfer case from shifting out of 4 low if the front axle shaft wont disengage. Do we need to unplug the front actuator electrical and put in a jumper to trick the ECU to think the axle actuator has retracted when it mechanically wont on its own? If I have a failure in the front axle actuator in the field I could care less if the front axle gears spin going down the highway I can fix it when I get home but I sure as hell care if I cant get the transfer case to shift out of 4 low so I don't have a tow out in the field. With a front axle actuator malfunction what sensor or electrical map keeps the transfercase actuator from doing its job and shifting into 4 high or 2WD. If you had a factory service manual you probably could figure this out.

 

It's the 4wd ECU. I'm sure you should jump the pins in the connector to make the computer think the actuator is disengaged. I believe there is a timer in the ECU that freaks out if the front axle doesn't disengage in a certain amount of time. And since that is the first step, it halts the whole process.

 

According to the Vegas bookies I've spoken to, there are 4-2 odds saying that they will.

 

So.... you're sitting there stuck and spinning your wheels for.... HOW MANY minutes? If it doesn't move pretty much right away, you need to STOP DIGGING IT IN DEEPER and either DIG or PULL it out! If it doesn't move right away, it ISN'T GOING TO.