I lost the ESOF into 4H and 4L. I pulled the shift motor housing off and still hooked up to the wires plugs and it seems to work fine.. I now have lights on the dash and it rotates the shaft into 4H and 4L as it should. But, with the shift motor off and using a wrench on the transfer case shaft, it does not move, (only slightly) using force. Any ideas.. ?

 

What position was the transmission selector in when you were wrenching the transfer case shifter manually by hand?

My transfer case will not shift manually into 4 LO unless the transmission lever is in Neutral. It will NOT shift in Park. I've never used 4 HI, but in theory it should shift into 4HI at any speed... except standing still.

According to Ford, tooth blockage can occur when trying to shift into 4 HI while the truck is stationary. Once the vehicle is driven above 5 miles per hour, the shift will complete.

So, with an electric shift module, the dash indicator lights may turn on indicating that a shift has been commanded, but the shift itself may not necessarily complete until vehicle movement has occurred above 5 MPH.

When manually testing the transfer case sector shaft by hand, Ford suggests using a torque wrench, and the torque should not exceed 33 foot lbs to shift through the 4 detent positions. Ford also says to manually rotate the rear driveshaft while turning the sector shaft to the 2wd position for testing, and the very first step is to release the parking brake. These instructions indicate to me that the vehicle is already presumed to be raised on a lift while the service is being carried out.

Naturally, if your truck isn't on a lift while you are testing, you don't want the truck to be in Neutral while you are laying underneath it yanking on a wrench, unless you raise and support all tires off of the the ground with sturdy jackstands on all four corners. This will enable you to also release the parking brake (which can't be trusted anyways) in order to follow Ford's method of shifting the transfer case with the parking brake released.

 

Thanks for all the great info.. I did have the trans in neutral when trying to manually shift the transfer case. I will lift the truck on jacks and try moving the drive line. Also I did try driving the truck without any luck... no lights, no transfer case engagement.

 

Just a following up to let you know I fixed the problem.. It ended up being a weak/bad shift motor. Got a new one from Amazon.com for $137, (didn't know they sold auto parts) and works great now. Appears the manual shift with a wrench takes upwards around 20 - 30 lbs of force.. which the old motor could not handle.. Ready for the snow now !! Thx Y2KW57 for the help..

 

Glad to hear you found the problem. I hardly ever have to replace T-Case shift motors. I think I've only replaced maybe 2 or 3.

When I worked at the Dodge Dealer years ago, we had a rash of complaints about difficulty shifting in and out of 4 low. Chrysler recommended that we instruct the customers to allow the vehicle to "creep" in neutral about 1 mph during the shift.

Their findings stated that the system was in a bind and not allowing easy garage shifts. This allows the synchro teeth for the 4 low 4 high selector in the T-case to align while both outputs of the T-case are loaded.

Since then, I have always used this method and find it to work excellent especially on the ESOF equipped trucks.

 

You're welcome. I'm sending reps to you for taking the time to come back and post a follow up of what happened in your case (ha ha), to let future readers know what to look for should the same symptoms happen to them.