How To Trouble Shoot 4x4 Actuator

Anyone know if anything major goes wrong if you drive on it? Going on a camping trip this weekend and dont need 4x4. Thanks

 

What part number did you use?

 

Nope. All this thing does is move the lever over that engages 4x4 up front.

 

Yesterday, I started the truck and discovered that it is in 4Hi...the switch is in 2Hi and selecting 4Hi or 4Lo does not change a thing...the 4WD indicator is on solid as it would be in 4Hi no matter what position the switch is in. So no blinking as other have had and it is stuck in 4WD as opposed to 2WD again...as opposed the issue most have. Is this also a symptom of the ADD actuator?

 

Only way to figure out is to pull the front actuator. Take a look and do the troubleshooting.

The front ring and actuator U shaped in the differential should be towards the passenger wheel when you remove it.

 

It will most certainly be in the position it needs to be to engage the front drive because based on low speed handling...it's in 4Hi. In my case it possibly could be the switch or some ecu. Maybe it did get water inside causing short something and move it into 4Hi...is that a "thing"?

Pulling the 4WD fuse shows 4LO on the dash regardless of switch position. I don't hear any noise coming from the actuator.

 

Have you tried going in reverse a short distance with the switch in the 2hi position? I had a finicky pathfinder that towards the end of its life that was the only way to pop it out of 4wd.

 

Yes ... I did try that to no avail.

 

Are you for sure in 4HI? Can you wiggle your front driveshaft at all?

If so, then you might want to drain the diff, pull off the actuator and take a look at the internals. If you need to solder the motor prongs back together, or like MJ, yours may be corroded inside. My brand new 4x4 with 20k miles on it had the prongs on the little motor come loose. 2 minutes of soldering and its never happened again.

 

I'm certain I'm in 4Hi by the steering response in low speed ie.parking lot maneuvers.


I'll give it a go...it's just that my issue is "sightly" different than everyone else's.

 

Ok as I said, check the front driveshaft first. If it's solid even when you move the the selector switch over to 2WD, your transfer case actuator might be the culprit. Have a buddy switch you back and forth and check to see what you hear from the transfer case and diff. If you're stuck in 4x4, sounds like a transfer case. If you're stuck in 2WD but can get the transfer case to click, it's the front diff actuator.

 

So I took the day off to address but my daughter got sick and came back from daycare so I won't be looking at this for a bit.

I'm hated my Colorado. I guess my expectation was too high with this truck as it too can fail due some poorly engineered do hickey.

 

SO...

The truck was definitely in 4Hi. There was NO clicking under the truck.

Everyone seemed to report a flashing 4Hi indicator...not me...on solid which correlated with the situation. I decided to look at the selector switch first. Took the dash apart and saw that cable going to the switch had become disconnected somehow....reconnected and VOILA!!!!!

I am back in the saddle baby!

20 minutes tops...$0 US...$0 CDN

 

Nice!

 

did you take any pics by any chance??

 

I did not...but I just removed the climate controls and stereo. Then I removed the 2 clips at the top of the instrument panel and popped it out enough so I could pop out the centre of the dash to access the 4WD selector. At that point my issue was obvious. There are a ton of take-apart videos on YouTube.

 

Good find!

 

Awesome work!

Would still highly recommend taking that actuator off, soldering and gasket maker around the edges. Eliminate ANY chance of that thing being a failure point in the future.

 

I've been considering buying actuators, soldering and gasket around the edges then re-selling.

If anyone would be interested in one of those PM.

 

Don't know how lucrative that would be, but good luck man! I mean, you'd already be pulling the old one off, its a quick 4 screws and you're inside the thing already, easy enough to toss a dot of solder on them and some RTV. But hey, we make money off of lazy people lol!