Hurricane Creek-Run and gun May 6-8

[RedHeadedStepChild]

MacLeod lives!!!
I spoke with the boys in Chesnee and got a few details.
It appears that the actuator on the front diff hung itself up completely.

This kept the front locked in. The shop managed to free it up, but suggested staying out of 4WD until it's replaced.
Once freed up, my dash indicator stopped blinking and the say they have been able to drive it without issue. Forward backward, corners both ways.
They tell me the transmission is fine, there's no sign of transfer case damage, and I'm good to pick it up and drive it home it 2WD. I'm coordinating the pick-up and the return of @Izzyandsue 's very generously loaned 80.

I DID remind them that we had pulled the front drive-shaft and that we still had issues. Their theory is that with the front screwed up the CDL actuator had started to disengage, got confused, when we were moving the TC back and forth between L and H to see if we could free things up, it got stopped in between H and Neutral, now that the front send the proper signal, the CDL is in the right place, the system is no longer loaded up, it can fully engage High in the TC. It's a theory anyway.

I'll get it home and see what I can see...

 

[izzyandsue]

My truck didn't have a single scratch, better show up as pristine as new! Can you source a used actuator?

 

[lt1fire]

My truck didn't have a single scratch, better show up as pristine as new! Can you source a used actuator?

Didn't your truck have a 5.7 I -force motor in there also...

 

[RedHeadedStepChild]

My truck didn't have a single scratch, better show up as pristine as new! Can you source a used actuator?

I'm working on buffing out that scratch on the rear driver side flair.

Looks like I can. New is over a grand, but it looks like the eBay has some for around $3-400. Initial searches show the actuator, or the whole diff with the actuator seem to be roughly the same. Need to look deeper

 

[izzyandsue]

Whats the part number? You may be able to rebuild the old one if it is just rusted or water logged.

 

[RedHeadedStepChild]

Whats the part number? You may be able to rebuild the old one if it is just rusted or water logged.

Need to look it up again, never wrote it down.


I forgot to mention, the Mother's Day Curse continued on after I got home.

As I'm unloading all my stuff into the garage, I noticed a stink in there.

It's grown worse over the days since I returned. I've been halfheartedly poking around trying to track it down until last night, after a nice hot Wilmington day, I could take it no longer. As I'm sniffing about, flashlight in hand, investigating all the stacked crap around the perimeter shelving in my garage, I zeroed in on the area near my smoker. Now I'm getting a bit nervous that some rat has somehow gotten into the smoker and expired.

Currently the doors are off the 44, and I have them resting in front of the smoker. I lift the first one up to move it aside. I hear a little plop sound. The stench hits me hard. Laying there on the ground is the maggot infested corpse of a rabbit. This little bugger had apparently come into the garage and taken up a position between the bottoms of the two doors. I guess something startled him, he jumped and got his little rabbit head wedged between the doors. There he hung and pooped until he died.

Flat shovel and rake at the ready, I scooped him up and dry heaved my way out of the garage to flip his stinky little corpse into the woods. I then proceeded to clean the rotten grease and fur off the doors.
I hope I have paid sufficiently that the curse shall now be lifted...

 

[izzyandsue]

Nasty. On the bright side;

"I pulled into town in a police car
Your daddy said I took it just a little too far.
You're tellin' other things, but your girlfriend lied
You can't catch me 'cause the rabbit done died.
Yes it did."

 

[JohnVee]

Looks like Jim is gonna be a daddy again. I learned about that on MASH, then I understood what Aerosmith was saying.

 

[RedHeadedStepChild]

Looks like Jim is gonna be a daddy again. I learned about that on MASH, then I understood what Aerosmith was saying.

sometimes things get fixed so they don't wok anymore. If ^that^ is true, the wife and I need to have a long conversation.

 

[JohnVee]

I am buying hard boiled eggs. Boiled some this morning but screwed that up. I am good for food.

Place eggs in a single layer in the pot.
Cover with cold water by 1".
Place on high heat.
DON'T GO TOO FAR AWAY!!!
Bring just to a boil, then cover and remove from heat.
Let sit 11 minutes.
Stop the cooking by running cold water in the pot, then adding ice cubes and let sit.
Crack eggs by rolling on the counter and peeling under running water.
**Easiest peeling comes from the freshest eggs.
**Less time equals softer yolk.
**Gray ring around yolk means you cooked them too long.

EXTRA NOTE:
Add peeled, boiled eggs to the liquid left in the pickle jar once you've finished the pickles. Close with lid. Let sit in refrigerator for 7-14 days before eating. Consume pickled eggs.

 

[izzyandsue]

1. drive to store
2. get hard boiled eggs
3. pay for them
4. eat them

 

[GLTHFJ60]

So given what we know now, that means that the CDL must have been unlocked but the front diff wasn't, so it's the front diff that broke?

That would make sense. I wish there was a way to verify whether or not the CDL was actually unlocked if the light just blinks.

 

[NCFJ]

I am glad that Richard knew what to look for. He's in his 60s and been doing drive line work forever.

This kind of thing, actuators on lockers, 4WD etc, blinking lights, solid lights that makes me nuts.
Give me a 60 series split case any day, two sticks and a light that comes on if you feel like hooking it up. Manual hubs on the front axle and the ability to run around in 2WD low.

That said I do like the two 4RNRS that we trailed with this trip. Very sporty little trucks. I even fit in Jim's without issue. I think I am spoiled by the size of the 80 though, more so now that we bring Sam. Oh yeah and Heather's 3" foam mattress pads for the tent (I love those things).

 

[RedHeadedStepChild]

So given what we know now, that means that the CDL must have been unlocked but the front diff wasn't, so it's the front diff that broke?

That would make sense. I wish there was a way to verify whether or not the CDL was actually unlocked if the light just blinks.

What I'm being told (I won't have the truck till Sunday), is that NOTHING appears to be broken. By broken here I mean over stressed and snapped. The actuator on the front diff, however, is not operating properly. The shop didn't want to do the work, because they had the part at over $1,000, BUT I think they were looking up the front diff assembly and not just the actuator which is less than $200 new.

For the late model GenIII the 4WD button, engages the front diff actuator, which gives you all wheel drive with an open center diff. The CDL then gives you true 4WD with a 50/50 front/rear split by actuating a fork in the TC to slide in the Cenetr Diff Lock sleave. Low is, obviosly, just lower gearing in 4WD.

Based on the initial behavior of the vehicle, the CDL was certainly engaged. Hence the binding followed by the hop/clang/bang. Based on the reports from the shop, I'm ASSUMING that the hop was actually from the tire finally breaking traction, and what I heard as a bang (everyone else heard clang) was all the collected clearances in the drive line suddenly being sling-shot back the other way and was NOT actually anything giving up the ghost.

When we first pulled over to pull the drive shaft, in an effort to free things up, I transitioned the the transfer case (via the shift lever) from High to Low. This necessarily means that I moved the TC through the Neutral position.
When the DS was put back in, the vehicle drove as though it were back in 2WD or more likely AWD. I could turn full lock figure-8s is either direction. What I think happened though was, with things hung up a bit the shift forks (diff lock in blue H/L in red) were moved, but not fully into position (or out of position for the CDL).

I believe (and the shop agrees) that the TC was basically in a not quite Neutral position - hence the grind/whir/ make-me-flinch sound with no power to the wheels. It was close enough to an engaged position, that at low rotational speed forward, it could catch and pull itself in a bit and drive, but in reverse or with the wheel/drive-shaft speed overrunning the input, it would slide back more toward neutral resulting in light contact and the grind/whir/make-me-flinch sound.

When I get it home, I'll be dropping the slick juice out and looking for shiny bits.

 

[weejub]

That all makes sense - even with the drive shaft off, the front driven output still was locked and never disengaged, thus the indicator kept blinking - CDL engaged the whole time.

No front Diff lock, so nothing to bind up there other than possible weird angles and torque on the entire front axle system.

 

[RedHeadedStepChild]

BTW - has anyone heard from @Green Hell Mustang ? We missed last weekend.

 

[izzyandsue]

Found Alex! Was wandering the trail looking for us!

 

[weejub]

We are Grateful he is not Dead . . .

Maybe he got a new FJ Cruiser?

 

[izzyandsue]

Leather and wood, thats a Lexi