Rear locking hubs. 2004 Tacoma

I took my truck into a shop because it wouldn’t drive unless it was in 2hi, with both the rear hubs locked. In 4hi it’s the same. They took apart the assembly for the locking hubs. They said that the front drivers side hub was assembled wrong and that was why the t case wasn’t doing what it was supposed to be doing when in 2hi, if you had the hubs unlocked. Am I dumb or aren’t you supposed to be able to be perfectly fine with nothing locked and be in 2hi. But for some reason I can do crap if I have it in 2hi with the hubs all unlocked. I’m super new go the off road stuff. I don’t have much knowledge of the locking hub stuff besides the stuff I worked on in the Army. Any help would be great! One of my buddies recommended to have the shop look at the rear axle.

 

Ok your post is absolutely confusing so I will try and help out.

Can you provide pictures of your rear setup?

Unless your truck has a complete custom rear end (being full float), you will not have any sort of locking hubs in the back.

Are you confusing this for the rear differential locker?

In stock form, the rear differential locker can only be engaged when in 4Lo if you have a 4 wheel drive truck; you engage 4Lo but first being in 2Hi, then pushing your button on your transfer case shifter to engage 4Hi, stopping, putting the transmission in Neutral, moving your transfer case lever to 4Lo, then putting your transmission back into Drive.

Only then will you be able to engage your rear locker (if equipped).

As for any front locking hubs, these were standard equipment on Tacoma's from 1995.5 to 2000 as 2001 and up models used an automatic differential disconnect (ADD).

So unless someone has modified the front end of your vehicle as well, you should have an ADD system if you have a 4 wheel drive truck.

So again, in this case pictures of the front will also help.

Questions with descriptions and no pictures are really hard to go off of if the exact correct terminology isn't used.

 

As stated above, in stock form you have none of what you mentioned equipped on your truck. Photos of front and rear hubs will be helpful. You sure you had your tcase in 2hi and not neutral?