How necessary is CDL really? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter desertwampa
- Start date
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Reporting back for you and @stonepa
Bad news: Colder temps here (50s) woke up, started truck, blinking CDL. WTF. Not sure if knee hit the button. Did the school runs. Angry at self.. that big problems. Got a coffee. Turned off and turned back on, all normal, CDL gone.
Drive 15 minutes to dirt offroad trail. Put it in 4LO.. Did the exercise for a bit, all is good.
Turned on CDL, VSA off light went on, . Truck made click noise and def drove slightly diff, CDL light solid.. . felt CDL actually was on and working. Exercised it a bit. Turned CDL off, walah just went off, no blinking (as it was doing before).
So I think all is ok. Not sure if doing 4LO first helped.....
So overall good news.
Blinking on cold start when the temps are cool out is typical. It wasn't your knee. Mine used to do it as soon as the temps got into the mid 40s like clockwork. After a few minutes of driving when you shut the truck off and turn it back on it will work. There are 3 possible fixes for this:
1. Pull the actuator motor assemblies off. Clean the contacts completely, spray the motors with CRC, apply new dielectric grease to the contacts, reinstall. @TeCKis300 has an excellent thread on this. If you do this, don't disassemble the microswitch. This is an hour or two of effort.
2. Drop the transfer case and remove the entire actuator and replace it. An Aisin actuator assembly is about $600. An OEM one is about $1100. It's about 6 hours of labor by the book. Parts and labor at the dealer is about $2500.
3. Do nothing and live with it. Be willing to drive a bit and restart the truck after a few minutes. If you exercise the motors regularly all year you'll likely reduce the frequency this happens to maybe a couple times per year. Case in point I went 6 months without an issue, activating them every couple weeks, then drove around Utah with repeated use without issue. I get to Breckenridge one evening and the following morning it's ~48F and when I start the truck the damn light is flashing. Eventually the problem may get worse and happen at most/every start, at which point you can revisit options 1 and 2
BTW you may want to double check the breather element for the transfer case is attached, not cracked, and that the one-way vent at the top is working properly. The suspicion is that corrosion is what causes the flashing CDL issue due to a small amount of moisture. The CDL ECU is actually supposed to ramp up the voltage when it's cold out so it's possible either (a) it's not ramping up enough or (b) the temperature point at which it should ramp up is incorrect, thus it's failing some sort of continuity test, or it is applying voltage correctly but there's some moisture inside the actuator motor housing shorting the contacts at cold start - hence why it goes away after a few minutes.
Thank you for the info.
Given I have confirmed CDL is working correctly and I finally was able to get it turned on and off by one press, and not having to do anything else, that is the good news.
With the good news, for now I will exercise option #3.
I will search up the breather element and check it out.
Exercising CDL and 4LO a couple of times a month keeps everything working great.
