Hello everyone. I have been dealing with a 2wd truck since the end of last winter, when the truck went CLUNK, popped out of 4x4, and hasn’t been able to reengage since then. With a fresh winter coming around I am pretty adamant about getting my 4x4 working again. I just put a fresh set of KO2 tires on the truck and my alignment guy told me I need to do upper and lower ball joints on both sides. Truck has 220k so I decided it’s time for front end rebuild. While I was removing the passenger side upper control arm, I think I may have found my 4x4 problem! Found 2 broken vacuum lines, one blue, one reddish orange. Then, some kind of vacuum line diverter or something, which kind of just fell out of the truck, not sure where that was supposed to go. I followed the broken vacuum lines to the actuator on the front diff. Then looked at the 4x4 solenoids and followed those lines down. Sure enough, they were the same lines. My question to you guys: Do I delete the IWE, or just put new lines on it? I have talked to a couple of people locally and they said if I can find a way to have the hubs always engaged then that’s the way to go. I was okay with the idea of replacing the lines, but I need reliability with my 4x4, and vacuum lines in my experience do not = reliability. Sorry for the essay here, just looking for some opinions from y’all to see what would be the best course of action. The truck will be sitting for the next week as I’m waiting on a few front end parts. Thanks guys,

- Nico

 

It's up to you. These systems seem pretty reliable. But if you want to just slide the actuator and somehow tie it off, you can.

You can also find a reliable source of vac and run your own line to the appropriate one to lock it. In the spring you can climb under there and swap it to unlock if you want.

The shift fork will mostly stay where you put it-- continuous vac is just to keep it from gradually walking on bumps, etc.

You can also run a vac switch into the cab if you really wanna get fancy. Then you can control it from the driver's seat but it's 100% mechanical-- no electrical signals or solenoids involved. Actually a great option for 2lo for backing trailers.

 

The front actuator on the F150s engages when there is no vacuum and disengages when vacuum is applied, so 4x4 should work fine without the lines attached.