Blue Ribbon 4x4 Build Thread

I was actually a bit surprised, and a tad disappointed, that the transfer case wasn't color matched already.

 

I’m gonna have to dip the whole damn truck in blue to satisfy you fellas.

 

Not the whole truck, you can skip the windows I suppose.

 

So this is a common issue? How many miles are on the Blue Ribbon?

 

About 80k. It’s happened to others, and I’m actually in the process of disassembling everything now. As far as it looks, the research I’ve done, the gear is off timing. I’ll have pictures in a bit

 

Honestly surprised you haved already. The tools used on it should be color matched too.

 

The truck hasn’t been wanting to go into 4lo from 4hi. The last couple times it was functional it went into 4lo but took quite a while to get back to 4hi. I researched on here and found a thread where someone had the same issue, and he adjusted his transfer case motor gear.
So here is what I tried. I pulled off the cap of the transfer case motor (grey with the wires). I compared it to the finished picture from his repairs and found that it was indeed different.

The circled pin in his picture is closer to the center of the screw hole and bolt to the right. The way the unit works is that the motor to the bottom left spins a spiral gear, moving the gear from 2wd, to 4hi, then 4lo. The gear goes from the spot it’s in now (2wd), counter clockwise to about 1 o’clock (4hi), then to about 8 o’clock (4lo).

I pulled the cap from the motor, and set the cylinder back after the damn thing separated from the motor brushes. You can manually spin the cylinder to adjust the pin, so long as the pin doesn’t hit the stop and the cylinder backs itself out. I adjusted it accordingly and put everything back together.
2wd works, 4hi works, 4lo has the same issue. It just beeps at me and I hear a good clunk up front. I put it in park and turned off and restarted the truck, and she’s back in 4hi.
I really don’t know where to go from here, I hate to just buy a $1k part to see if maybe that’s the issue.

 

Damn, a thousand bucks is an a lot of scratch, especially for something that's not on the wish list, just a repair.

 

If it actually fixes the issue, I have no problem forkin over the dough. I’m just not 100% sure it’s gonna fix it. Tomorrow I’ll try my obdII reader and see if there’s a code.
One thing at least is that I learned a ton about how the transfer case works.

 

Non Tundra stuff today. I have a 1995 Chevy 3500. It broke down last week. After a shop replaced the distributor and coil, the mechanic told me I had a crack in the exhaust manifold. I had some significant noise from the engine that I knew had to be an exhaust leak, but I definitely didn’t know it was this bad.
The old manifold came out in two freakin pieces. I saturated the bolts with penetrating oil for a few days before the job today. The new one went right on, I really had no issues.
She sounds like champ again, doesn’t look too bad for 27 years old.

 

Not the hottest 27 year old I've seen, but I'd take her for a ride.

 

Didja check out that rack?

 

Of course! I'm all about the racks. Lots of guys are all obsessed with the exhausts and I can appreciate that, but one is dirty and smell, while the other is great for just grabbing ahold of and hanging on to. Way more variety in the racks too. I mean, EVERYone has an exhaust.

 

Agreed. This one is bolt on, but it looks OEM, which is what really matters.

 

I attended a couple Toyota toy drives the last couple weekends. Even won a Method Wheels hat, and my wife picked up a couple bottles of Raptor liner for the front bumper!

 

Holy chit!!! I’ve been reading quite a few threads on the transfer case actuator issue. One dude just simply recommended trying it every day warmed up, in order to exercise the actuator motor.
So I started today. The first time I tried 4LO, it popped in, but wouldn’t come out immediately. Took a few seconds and a little roll forward while in Neutral, but it came out into 4HI. Then I bombed around a little more and tried again. This time much smoother back into 4HI. The next four tries, the actuator worked great. So is that it? Just needed a little exercise? I’ll be trying again every day for the next couple weeks. Maybe just needed it’s juices flowing.

 

Well that's good to hear. I've been doing like the book says, trying to get 10 miles of driving in 4hi each month and just in the last week or so I made sure it would go into and out of 4lo. And I believe it's true as the more you do it, the easier it seems to go in and out of both hi and lo. Go figure?

 

Yep, seems so. I use 4HI all the time, it works flawlessly. It’s the 4LO that almost never gets used. I’m thinking that’s what was up. I’m just surprised it worked so quickly. But I’m going to be doing this procedure every day foe a couple weeks, so maybe it’s reliability will come back.

 

DAY 2 of the transfer case actuator chronicles.
It freakin works. It shifted into 4LO with zero hesitation and came right out into 4HI. Shifted into each after driving around in both. It’s already working smoothly. So I’ll keep it going this week and next week. Needless to say, I’m pretty excited about this! Exercise your actuators!!!
-yes, I put gas in her right after this picture.

 

Great news. I love it when a plan comes together.

 

Man, that is AWESOME! What a relief, right?

 

Super happy about it!! May still be too soon to say but I’m gonna keep up with it.

 

Day 3 of the transfer case actuator chronicles. Once again, it works smoothly. Switched into 4LO four times. This time making sure to even come all the way out to 2wd each time. I don’t know if this is boring or not to anyone, but this information would have been so important to me earlier. We’ve all heard that you need to engage 4WD once a month, though many haven’t had any problems with their actuators and they don’t use 4WD once a month. My truck just so happened to be one of those cases where it decided to stop working fully.
Also, the area I frequent while doing these tests and taking pictures is very near to my home, it’s basically unpaved powerline roads. We have a drug problem and homeless issue in our desert town, there’s no shortage of people living in their vehicles. I just try to be somewhat respectful and steer away from them, there’s plenty of roads. The scary part is coming upon deserted vehicles, shot up vehicles, and shacks that people have built as their dwelling. They find bodies in our desert all the time, usually inside these vehicles.
They always say don’t go off-road alone, but this reason is the one that freaks me out the most. Be careful out there folks. Enjoy your holidays.

 

Very helpful as suggestions in the book don't carry nearly the weight of someone who has seen positive results like you did. I have noticed that since going in and out of 4hi and 4lo recently that each time it seems to do it more easily as well and I highly recommend it. If nothing else, gives you a reason to go find some dirt, snow, or gravel and play, er, uh, I mean "scientifically test your 4WD system."

 

Day 4 of the transfer case actuator chronicles. Yesterday got busy, then completely forgot. So I bombed it up to the aqueduct and tested up those hills today. 4LO worked flawlessly again. Pretty fun little area, nice climbs and views.

 

I think the title, "transfer case actuator chronicles" needs work but as long as the content continues with good news I think we have a hit. Nice pics too, looks like a cool place to do some "scientific testing" of the 4WD system too.