Trouble moving in 4wd

Yep, drove perfectly fine 4 months ago when I last had the 4wd on. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. After I had my rear driveshaft reinstalled 3 months ago, I never had to use my 4wd since yesterday.

Truck has 5.29 gears in the rear. After I left my mechanics this morning, took the truck home, put it in 4Hi, and tried rolling it in neutral, truck wouldn’t move at all. Put the truck back in 2Hi, rolled perfectly fine in neutral. My mechanic is thinking the 4wd actuator isn’t engaging properly so the truck is halfway between 2wd and 4wd. I told him my indicator light shows I’m properly in 4wd, but it just doesn’t want to move forward or backwards without straining the truck. I’m guessing it’s either cv axles, needle bearing, or actuator. I’ll know more on Tuesday when my mechanic takes a look at the truck.

 

Sorry about that, but correct, front and back 5.29 gears. Just had my front diff and transfer case oil changed about 5 months ago, I don’t think it could’ve gone bad that quick but I’d be more than willing to take a look and just double check.
Off topic, but I just moved from Fontana almost a year ago after living there for 5 years up in Sierra lakes!

 

Ah how many front drive vehicles are on the streets? By the way how are you keeping oil in the trans with no drive shaft?

 

Not to sound bad but did you physically look at tire size?
When you made a stink they might have grabbed one close in size just to get rid of you that you won't feel in2wd.

What you are feeling is driveline bind, ie one axle is trying to turn faster, common causes are different size tires or different gear ratio's.
I doubt it's cv's as they turn all the time, actuaters either work or they don't, partial engagement would hear gears grinding.
If you have ever seen a transfer chain you would see how hard it would be for your little truck to stretch it.

 

You mention 5.29s being in back and rear, not to sound stupid, but did you have this done recently, and are you sure they are 5.29 in the rear? Just wondering if there was a screw up?

 

Don’t worry, nothing here sounds bad, I’m grateful for everyone giving me their own input as you all probably know a lot more than me. I did check tire sizes, all 4 check out at 285/70/17. Prior to 3 months ago being the last time I used my 4wd, truck drove perfectly fine on and off-road in 4wd, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
When I drove in 4wd yesterday on flat ground in a straight line, the steering wheel would shake pretty wild, and it just felt like my truck was physically off balance for some reason. During that, I was only moving forward at maybe 5 miles per hour, maybe even less.
I’m kind of had the feeling it wasn’t the actuator because it went in and out of 4wd completely normal, like it always has done. The gentleman that told me his actuator went bad told me that his truck would just flash 4Hi and nothing would happen if he rolled it in forward or reverse. Mine on the other hand can actually go forward and reverse but my truck struggles.

 

Done 10 months ago, previous owner had them done with the receipts.

 

Sorry. was thinking everything happened at once, good luck.

 

Hell yeah, I was supposed to fly back this month to finish my last session with Alex, but with all this stuff happening it might be a couple months before I’m able to get back up there.

I’ll probably jack it up tomorrow morning and get to that, and at the same time I’ll check all my fluids and see if anything is looking suspect. It’s a good thing I checked my 4wd yesterday and noticed it. I was supposed to go on a little 4wd trip this morning, but it would’ve been a
1-1/2hour drive to the spot and it would’ve sucked to get there and find out my 4wd doesn’t work.

 

Reg cab with a single driveshaft, everything is sealed up so once you remove driveshaft you don’t have to worry about oil leaking. I was skeptical about it when my mechanic took it out and told me to drive it around, but after a month of driving with no rear driveshaft I had no leaking from trans. Checked fluid right after my driveshaft got reinstalled and everything looked like it did before.

 

front CV/shafts and diff are all spinning in 2WD or 4WD, so if it was CV stuff I would expect that you would feel it or at least notice something in 2WD, also. Im not sure how the 2-to-4 mechanism works, but to me it seems that the transfer case is where the front drive parts of the 4WD system are engaged/disengaged so it seem that the front drive shaft and its universals would also always be spinning in 2WD just not connected to the rear part of the 4WD system. So if my understanding is correct, the only difference between 2WD and 4WD, as far as what parts are spinning, is something that connects the front/rear drive parts of the system in the transfer case. It might be worth starting to look for loose/broken or incorrectly assembled parts that do not work correctly when under torque load.

OP, did you check the 4WD operation after the shop re-installed your driveshaft?

Disclosure: I am new to 4x4 in general and only have a conceptual understanding of how they work and not a detailed understanding of how the 4WD system and its mechanics work specifically on these trucks.

 

I’m thinking front diff. In 2hi the Add is unlocked. Can’t be CV shafts or bearings as they are still spinning no matter what. Transfer case is not spinning front diff in 2hi.

when you hit 4hi the add connects cv shafts to the front diff and the transfer case starts to spin that front driveshaft.

I would put it on jack stands, remove rear drive shaft. Put in 4hi and see if the front turns.

 

My heart skipped too

 

Yep, actually had to use 4wd the day after driveshaft got reinstalled and everything felt fine. Double checked driveshaft earlier, bolted up perfectly fine besides the new vibration I’m getting between 35-45, but that’s during driving in 2Hi and seems like that wouldn’t affect my 4Hi. And I’m definitely new to 4x4 too, had my share of 4x4 trucks but growing up I never really paid attention to how exactly they work, just a “put it in 4wd and start going” type of guy. After this, I’m definitely gonna have to start doing my research on all of this.

 

Thanks for the input, definitely doing this tomorrow morning for sure. At least that way if I can conclude that if my fronts don’t spin while jacked up in 4Hi, I can relay that info to my mechanic so maybe he can diagnose it faster on Tuesday instead of having to run through a whole list of what-ifs. He’s a busy shop so if I can take some of the guess work out of his hands, he’d be a lot happier.

 

If it's that violent a shake some thing is mismatched, tires or gearing. Have you removed the drive shafts one at a time and driven it? With that gearing it is about 16% to 3% from stock depending on tire size so that's a big difference. Bit of a pain but paint a reference mark on front and rear tires push the truck as straight as possible and see if the paint masks line up again.

 

i’m watching this thread trying to learn. Any pointers to a gear ratio for dummies explanation? These quotes give me the sense that front and back should have different ratios? Why? I’d guess the same ratio would have them rotate the same size tires together in 4wd.

 

No, they need to be the same

 

Got it. Thx. Must read slower lol. IF the gears were a different ratio would you have this issue bc it’s trying to rotate at a different rate? Worth double checking? Seems that if it drives fine in 2wd (rear gears) and drives fine in 4hi with no rear shaft (front gears) and binds with both on hard ground it’s a gearing issue. I’m interested to see what you find when you jack up all 4.

 

Sorry Rebel, not related to your problem, but I've got to ask. You're running 5.29 gears with 32.5" tires & a manual trans. In hi gear, doing 60 mph. do you know what rpm. you are running? Thanks.