Locked differential

Discovered this not so fun quirk after nearly plowing over a road sign way down in the ditch. My differentials are completely locked up and I have no clue why.
My truck is an 09 sport with the lsd rear end and no locking option front or rear. An interesting add on is that I snapped my driver side CV axle a few months ago while in 4wd and won’t shift back out, I just replaced them with 2 remanufactured oem CVs but it still won’t shift into 4wd completely nor back into 2wd.
I digress, I have not the slightest clue what’s happened but after about an hour of testing I can confirm that my rear differential and the passenger side wheel are 100% locked together. The truck won’t idle forward while turning hard left or right and has a noticeable humming coming from the front end combined with a slight vibration being paired with it that only occurs while decelerating/engine braking. I can’t find anything that’s broken/snapped/shifted out of place or anything of the sort.

Biggest thing I care about is the drivability, this truck is my only vehicle and I can’t really afford to have it down again so unless it’s an easy fix or not detrimental it’s staying.

 

Are you sure it's not your front differential that is locked in and causing the issue?It will definitely try to ''crab'' and break things [including your transfer case] if the front is locked in on hard dry pavement.

 

I literally can’t as of right now, it won’t shift into 2H, 4H, or 4L as of right now. It’s stuck as a 3wd unless it magically does something itself or I remove the actuator and manually shift it.

I can’t confirm that it’s just the front differential, I know for a fact that the rear is locked and that the front passenger side is too since it’s still locked in as the truck thinks it’s attempted 4wd and had given up trying anymore. Is there any way to test if the front is locked?

 

Agree with the above posts. If you are in 4WD (front axle engaged) and on a hard surface, you risk binding the drivetrain, which can break things that you don't want broken.
Try to get it into 2WD mode. It might help to back up while turning the steering wheel side-to-side. You might need to jack up a front tire to relieve the binding.

 

What does the 4WD indicator on the dash show?
At the very least, you need to get the transfer back into 2WD.
The front differential is open, so it makes since one of the fronts is “locked”.

 

FWIW, worst case.
Pull the transfer case actuator and push the rod all the way IN.
That will get you back to 2WD. If you continue to drive like it is now, you risk damaging the transfer case. When I say 2WD, I mean the transfer case will be in 2WD. The front differential will still be in 4WD. But you won’t risk damaging the transfer case. That’s expensive……real expensive.

 

Did you check the parking brake cables? Maybe one of them got pulled and the brakes are simply stuck.

 

He says the front passenger wheel is locked with the rear wheels?
I don’t know, seems like there a bigger issue?

 

You can't afford to keep driving it like it is. Park it and find other means until it is fixed. You will do serious damage to the drivetrain and probably already have.

 

I’ll have to see if I can the civic running but she’ll stay parked in an hour.

I’m going to hope this works otherwise

It’s been flashing, no buzzer, just flashing. It’s been doing this since the cv broke in February and I’ve left the shifter in 2wd the whole time

 

It’s hard to take a picture to show that it’s flashing but my 4wd light is on and flashing, not solid

 

I can’t express exactly how happy I was, thank you all so much for getting my truck working again. I’m all of 18 2 weeks ago and this is my only vehicle that runs, I was able to get off work at 10:15 instead of 10:30 today and got my truck home and popped the actuator off and put it into 2wd. It felt like that shaft could pull out more than it was but I got it pushed in and confirmed that the front wheel was free spinning after I got it jacked up. Used up damn near all of my lunch break but I made it to school almost on time. I’ll work at getting the front end fixed so it shifts in and out of 4wd before popping that a tutor gear back in. Again thank you all so much I was so lost and probably would’ve grenaded my transfer case and been shit out of luck.

 

How does it drive now? Does the rear end feel free and normal now? Glad you didn't roach your T case.

 

It feels as normal as it did before, all open and unlocked diffs front and rear