If something mechanical was stopping the TC from going in to 4WD, you would probably get what you are seeing.
The TC tries to go in to 4WD, but doesn’t achieve it or doesn’t achieve it in the time allowed and therefore the controller puts it back to 2WD. You see the green light come on, hear the actuator and then it goes out.
Any chance something is wrong with the TC rebuild?
this was my first thought too but now I tried two different cases as i bought a spare original case as well as my now defunct low geared one. same result. and I can shift them just fine by pulling the fork/rod manually before I put the actuator on them. they both feels the same when pulling the rod.
Could be the actuator turned weak though. Even though there was no sign of water ingress in the one on the car. If I discoonnect the actuator the light flash rapidly so the controller can sense it.
The other possibility is a snagged wire on the sensors between the TC and the controller, can you ring them through or check for shorts?
The sensor connectors both has 12v so seem fine. both switches tested and retested and I made both a manual switch to test and tried another switch. shorting out the connectors make no difference either. will try that again in different constellations as it just might be two errors at once since it is hard to understand.
I will try to find a controller from a scrapper to test, they can be bought cheap used on ebay.
The actuator though I will not buy used. rather a complete used transfer case or a new actuator.
But right now only auto-transfer cases at norwegian scrappers. they have a joint web page all of them in Norway.
Sadly jimnys where sold in small numbers and now the prices are stupid so none get scrapped. so hard to get. my original used case comes from Sweden.
