Hi folks,
A few years ago I pulled the front diff out for a rebuild. At the time I didn't know about the criticality of indexing the actuator against the shift fork rack. I cycled the lockers on a trip soon after and the front would not disengage. Not too surprising, surely it was clocked wrong and the motor didn't have the chance to fully load up the unlock wait spring before the diff ECU turned it off.
The odd thing is that the indicator light(s) turned off once I turned the lockers off. I thought everything was working correctly and that the understeer I felt was due to the 2 feet of snow I was driving in. Once I hit pavement I really felt the steering get heavy but I wasn't sure yet if it was the locker or bearings. Pulling into a parking lot the diff finally unlocked with a hard clunk (think like forcing a part time TC into 2wd when the drivelines are bound).
I don't often need a front locker so I've put this on the back burner but I'm gearing up to address this and I'm hoping the ends of those fine splines forgave me for the incident. As I understand it, I will need to move the shift fork to the far right (unlocked) position, and match the indication on the rack (far left tooth according the the FSM image) against the indication on the actuator pinion, manually cycling the actuator if necessary. I don't remember seeing these when I had it apart but I don't doubt they're there.
Here's what I need help answering: Assuming I do all this and the splines are happy, can I still sleep easy knowing that the indicator light didn't show I was still locked? It seems I was just "barely locked", is it possible the switch for the light doesn't have quite a far enough travel to positively confirm disengagement? This is something I've come up short with in my search. Oh, and the actuator was never opened up, just removed from the diff housing. Everything was working fine before the diff rebuild.
Thanks all.
A few years ago I pulled the front diff out for a rebuild. At the time I didn't know about the criticality of indexing the actuator against the shift fork rack. I cycled the lockers on a trip soon after and the front would not disengage. Not too surprising, surely it was clocked wrong and the motor didn't have the chance to fully load up the unlock wait spring before the diff ECU turned it off.
The odd thing is that the indicator light(s) turned off once I turned the lockers off. I thought everything was working correctly and that the understeer I felt was due to the 2 feet of snow I was driving in. Once I hit pavement I really felt the steering get heavy but I wasn't sure yet if it was the locker or bearings. Pulling into a parking lot the diff finally unlocked with a hard clunk (think like forcing a part time TC into 2wd when the drivelines are bound).
I don't often need a front locker so I've put this on the back burner but I'm gearing up to address this and I'm hoping the ends of those fine splines forgave me for the incident. As I understand it, I will need to move the shift fork to the far right (unlocked) position, and match the indication on the rack (far left tooth according the the FSM image) against the indication on the actuator pinion, manually cycling the actuator if necessary. I don't remember seeing these when I had it apart but I don't doubt they're there.
Here's what I need help answering: Assuming I do all this and the splines are happy, can I still sleep easy knowing that the indicator light didn't show I was still locked? It seems I was just "barely locked", is it possible the switch for the light doesn't have quite a far enough travel to positively confirm disengagement? This is something I've come up short with in my search. Oh, and the actuator was never opened up, just removed from the diff housing. Everything was working fine before the diff rebuild.
Thanks all.
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