Ok..... here goes. For the last little while I have been having an issue with the 4wd in my 2006 F-150 with about 93k on the clock. Sometimes it would engage when I switched to 4H/4L and other times it wouldn't. A friend of mine works at a Ford dealership and said it could be the vacuum solenoid on the firewall going bad. So I bought a new one and as I removed the old one, noticed debris in one of the inlets. So I cleaned that out and neither old or new solved the problem. Then I went through ALL of the vaccum lines and found some debris in parts of them....Cleaned them all out and still nothing. Then I got to thinking it may be the ESOF motor on the transfer case. Checked to make sure there was power to the plug, which there was. Removed the motor and turned switch, and the motor seemed to be working. Reattached the motor and the 4wd would engage/disengage without problem. Pretty much everywhere I went I would check it and it worked fine . Then all of a sudden it didn't . So I took the motor off, turned selector and it worked fine. No issues yesterday at all.

So, I am not sure if it is the motor going bad or not. Could there be a contact problem? I talked to a mechanic this morning and he told me to drive around with it in 4H for a while because more times than not it doesn't get used enough. I'm just not sure what could be going on...am I missing something? Any and all help is greatly appreciated

 

After much searching, reading and searching... I am thinking it is the transfer case motor. This weekend I am going to take it apart and inspect the brushes and clean it up to see if that solves the problem. I found a handy little article dealing with this as well: Servicing A Transfer Case Shift Motor

But any feedback in this issue is greatly appreciated

 

Stop talking to the "mechanic" that said to drive around in 4x4. He is an idiot and following his instructions will cause you a lot of damage to the front end 4x4 parts.

Yes the shift motor on the transfer case is known to stick if not used regularly. It could be the shift motor is sticking. If you want to keep it exercized, don't do it on pavement when you drive in 4x4.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/8...then-some.html

 

Thanks 60DRB . When he told me that, I was like "What?!?!" He said,
"Oh yeah, you can drive 60 mph in 4H and not have an issue".... Not me . Even when I took the vacuum solenoid back and talked to the Ford Service Manager, he said he has never heard of anything going wrong with motor on the crank case. My thought was "yeah, right". He told me it's all run on a vacuum and shouldn't have anything to do with the motor. That link you posted is very helpful. Makes understanding the vacuum system a little easier. I should print it off and take it to the guy . I am very greatful for this site for the wealth of info it has and for saving me a ton of $$. I could just imagine the bill I would have for replacing the solenoid (which wasn't the problem), cleaning out the vacuum lines, then checking the motor.... But as far as I know, it has been working still. I may check the motor to make sure the components are clean and that worm gear is lubed up.

And I will not be tooling around in 4H at 60mph Thanks for your help.

 

how would i go about starting a new thread on this forum ?

 

actually the mechanic's right if you do want to get the transfercase good and warm. A five mile loop on the highway at 65 or 70 in 4H is standard procedure to get one up to operating temperature for testing.

Going 60 in 4H on dry pavement for a couple miles isn't going to hurt anything unless it was already going. It doesn't make your truck last any longer but it won't kill it. People have this paranoia that driving one mile on dry pavement in 4x4 is going to make the truck explode. I've done it many times and haven't seen it explode. Well, except for the one time we did the 5 mile 70mph loop with no oil in the transfercase. It did okay in 4H but the we got back to the parking lot and put it in 4L and didn't get far. But that was a Jeep Liberty so you can blame that one on being a Chrysler.

Anyway the highway in 4x4 may be a little extreme for most but I would move your 4x4 through the different positions once a month or so. Drive in 4x4 on a dirt road or grass if you really want to be easy on the truck.

As for the vacuum business, 9 out of 10 transfercase engineers recommend manual lockout hubs

 

Click on the "New Thread Button" on the previous page where all the threads are listed.

Stewart

 

Thanks for the attempt to help but where exactly on the page is the new thread button ?
Six buttons over from the left I see a new posts button, is that what your talking about ?
Sorry but I am a computer idiot

 

It's all good. I can't do anything electrical.

In the first pic, the "New Thread" button is located at the top left of the picture.

The second pic (the button is now near the bottom left) shows you the orientation of the button and where it is on the page.

The page where the button is located is the one that lists all the different threads you might be interested in reading. It's the page where this very thread is located that you click on to get here, reading my post.