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No 4wd drive and flashing 4wd light

  • marcusleighus
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16 Dec 2017 12:40 #187532 by marcusleighus
No 4wd drive and flashing 4wd light was created by marcusleighus
My 07 Suzuki jimmy has a push button 4wd system, at the moment I have no 4wd and the 4wd light is flashing, the buttons are unresponsive.
I’ve had a different transfer case installed, a different ECU and still no 4wd! After removing the automatic locking hubs and manually pulling them into 4wd I jacked the entire car up and started to drive the wheels. At first the two rear wheels drove as well as the driver side front wheel! I turned the car off and on again and now the two rear are driving and just the passenger side front wheel! Is that at all normal when In 4wd?? And does anyone have any ideas on what the problem could be as well as the fix??

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16 Dec 2017 14:39 #187536 by mlines
Unfortunately Jacking the car up all at once simply tests the differentials. You may see wheels rotate, you may even see one rotate in the wrong direction.

You need 3 wheels solidly on the ground and then jack one wheel up at a time (in 4WD with the engine off) and try and turn the one wheel by hand. If it is locked solid and cannot be turned then the drive is ok on that wheel.

However the "unresponsive buttons" are a concern. Do you mean they do nothing at all?

Martin

2003 M13 early KAP build.
3" Trailmaster lift with 1.5 Spacers on front
Customised winch bumper and roll cage
235/85R16 Maxxis Bighorns on 16" Rims, 4:1 Rocklobster, Rear ARB locker and on-board air
Corrected arms all-round, rear disks, Recaro seats and harnesses

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16 Dec 2017 14:46 #187537 by marcusleighus
Replied by marcusleighus on topic No 4wd drive and flashing 4wd light
I’ll try just jacking up the one wheel and testing it and as for the buttons, I’m assuming whilst the 4wd light is flashing then it’s letting the system know there is a failure somewhere so the buttons are useless at that point. I have in the past through unplugging the ECU and then plugging the two wires in at the same time been able to have a stationary 4wd light and The buttons were responsive when selecting 2wd or 4hi but when I go back to pressing 4wd, the light flashes and again the buttons do nothing

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16 Dec 2017 15:16 #187538 by mlines
Sorry, just to be clear. The buttons are responding to your request to go from 2WD to 4WD and back, they just do not work during the flashing bit.

Sorry to be pedantic but there is a distinct sequential logic built into the 4WD controller and you need to be 100% clear on the button sequence you are trying.

Martin

2003 M13 early KAP build.
3" Trailmaster lift with 1.5 Spacers on front
Customised winch bumper and roll cage
235/85R16 Maxxis Bighorns on 16" Rims, 4:1 Rocklobster, Rear ARB locker and on-board air
Corrected arms all-round, rear disks, Recaro seats and harnesses

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16 Dec 2017 15:17 #187539 by facade
I thought the 4wd light flashing and no beeping means the transmission can't be bothered with 4wd at all, and has shifted back into 2wd anyway because of a "malfunction".

If this is the case, no amount of testing is going to work.

I'd start by checking that the air hubs go "click-click" (as fast as you can say it) when 4wd is first selected, if they are working and the fault is in the transfer box, I'd expect "click-click", followed a few seconds later by "clack-clack" if the car is winding back into 2wd.

If it suddenly breaks, go back to the last thing that you did before it broke and start looking there :)

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16 Dec 2017 15:23 #187540 by marcusleighus
Replied by marcusleighus on topic No 4wd drive and flashing 4wd light
Starting in 2wd I would select 4wd and that is where the flashing would begin and the buttons would stop responding, after essentially resetting the ECU and starting the car up again the flashing 4wd light would be stationary, at this point it would allow me to press 2wd or 4low but trying to press 4wd again from either 2wd or 4low would simply restart this cycle

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16 Dec 2017 15:55 #187541 by facade
Reads to me as if the transfer is going into 4wd, and the air hubs don't work (or more precisely, the vacuum switch in the engage line is not operating, because there isn't any vacuum, or the switch is faulty). If you quickly turn it off before it winds back into 2wd, when you turn the ignition back on it remembers it was in 4wd and doesn't check the vacuum switch as it isn't engaging anything so the light is steady.

Try shorting out the vacuum switch wires and see if the 4wd low will engage properly with the buttons.

If it suddenly breaks, go back to the last thing that you did before it broke and start looking there :)

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16 Dec 2017 16:00 #187542 by marcusleighus
Replied by marcusleighus on topic No 4wd drive and flashing 4wd light
It isn’t actually going into 4wd at all

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16 Dec 2017 17:44 #187545 by facade
You sure? 4wd might be engaged, but the hubs are not locked. Both things have to happen before there is drive to the front wheels.

How it works, bear with me...

In the Olden Days, when people did everything with big levers, and the strength of their arms, suzuki used fixed front hubs and a lever on the transfer box to first lock a dog clutch so the front axle was driven, and then go around a gate (or use a second lever, I'm not sure) to operate a second selector and engage low gears.
Then someone had the bright idea to fit unlockable hubs on the front, that you had to get out (on the mud usually) and lock so the front axle would drive. This is the system retrofitted to many jimnys as there isn't much to go wrong.

For the jimny, suzuki went for vacuum operated locking/unlocking hubs.
So inside you pull a lever, which moves the sleeve over the dog teeth of the front shaft (or doesn't, so you fiddle and move the car slightly until everything lines up and try again, it always will at walking pace) When the selector has moved far enough, the 4wd switch activates. This sends a signal to the hub controller, which activates the vacuum valves to lock the hubs. It waits a few seconds to see if there is a vacuum in the pipe, and if there is, it assumes that the hubs worked, and activates the 4wd light. If there is no vacuum in the pipe the vacuum switch doesn't operate, and it assumes the hubs aren't locked, and flashes the 4wd light.

Yours has a servo motor on the transfer box that does the job of the lever.
So when you press the 4wd button, a second controller first checks that the motor is at rest in the 2wd position (limit switch) and then motors it to the 4wd position (4wd switch activates) and switches it off. The 4wd switch then activates the hubs and 4wd light like the original jimny.

shifting into 4wd low, you need to stop and press the clutch (or select neutral in an auto). The controller first checks that the 'box is actually in 4wd high, and then turns the motor on again until the 4wd low switch operates. There is a spring between the low range selector and the motor, as if the teeth don't line up, it wont go in, it will go in as soon as something starts to move though.

The hubs are already locked so it shouldn't take any notice of the vacuum switch when going from high to low.

If it can't complete the shift within a set time, or any of the switches fail to match up with expectations, or you are moving too fast or too slow (speed sensor) , it aborts and goes back to the 2wd High position.

Now I think that your problem is the transfer box is going into 4wd high, so the front propshaft is driven, but the hubs don't lock, so the wheels won't drive. I'm not sure if having the 4wd light flashing in the first place will cause it to abort the 4wd altogether, or just ignore requests for 4wd low.

So as suggested above-

Put it in 4wd and jack up one front wheel with the handbrake on.
If the wheel will easily rotate by hand, the hubs are probably not locked. Crawl underneath and try to turn the front propshaft.
If it will turn, the transfer box is not in 4wd.


Shorting out the vacuum switch below the battery will cause the controller to think the hubs are working, and if the hubs are the problem, should allow selection of 4wd with a steady light, and then allow 4wd low to be selected.
If this fixes it then you simply fit manually controlled hubs and forget the vacuum system, like many others here.

If it suddenly breaks, go back to the last thing that you did before it broke and start looking there :)

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16 Dec 2017 19:21 #187556 by mlines
Have a look at this (this is why I was asking the exact sequence)

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Martin

2003 M13 early KAP build.
3" Trailmaster lift with 1.5 Spacers on front
Customised winch bumper and roll cage
235/85R16 Maxxis Bighorns on 16" Rims, 4:1 Rocklobster, Rear ARB locker and on-board air
Corrected arms all-round, rear disks, Recaro seats and harnesses
Attachments:

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16 Dec 2017 20:22 #187558 by marcusleighus
Replied by marcusleighus on topic No 4wd drive and flashing 4wd light
So going off that chart it would be that the malfunction is in the transfer shift actuator limit shift, where abouts would I locate it and would there be any obvious reasons to the malfunction when I do find it? Thanks for the suggestion facade I’ll give that a go

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16 Dec 2017 22:10 #187560 by mlines
The limit switch is inside the actuator mechanism, inside the transfer box. Therefore the bad news is that if it has failed then it is a new actuator module that is needed.

Attached is the diagram. As you can see it is in the wires to the transfer box with "YELLOW" as the main colour.

Your best hope is that the cable has been disturbed in some way and can be cleaned and re-seated. If not then the actuator has to come out and be bench tested. However actuator failure is fairly common,

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Martin

2003 M13 early KAP build.
3" Trailmaster lift with 1.5 Spacers on front
Customised winch bumper and roll cage
235/85R16 Maxxis Bighorns on 16" Rims, 4:1 Rocklobster, Rear ARB locker and on-board air
Corrected arms all-round, rear disks, Recaro seats and harnesses
Attachments:

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