Topic: 4wd not working?

[GrimJeeper]

I am looking for some tips or suggestions.  I reached down to engage my 4 wd on my 95 wrangler and low and behold nothing happened. I went out to an empty field to test it and sure enough it's not working at all.  I even drove around for a while in the field and almost got stuck.  

What's the deal?  It has never failed me before and everything under there is stock.

Are there any common issues I can look for?  It seems to be a mechanical issue, but the lever does engage in both High and Low.  In Low the gearing does reduce, but no front axle.  

Is this going to be expensive? :(

[Jeffy]

The most common thing that happened is that your vacuum disconnect sprung a leak someplace.  It requires engine vacuum to moce a diaphram that enguages 4wd.  You might want to check and see that the lines are connected to the axle.  If it's not then it's an easy fix.  If it is connected then it could be a vacuum leak in the lines, a bad vacuum switch at the transfer case or a bad diaphram.

A vacuum gun would be handy to test everything.

Now if you're wanting not to replace or even bother fixing the vacuum setup you have several options.  One is the pin the shift fork into 4WD perminantly.  This will cause the driveshaft to turn all the time and you might have to rebalance the front driveshaft.

Another option is to swap the axle shafts from XJ or even TJ axle shafts.  This gets rid of the two-piece shaft and again you'll probably want to balance the front shaft.

Another option is to get a Power-Lok.  They have two types now.  One replaces the vacuum lines with a cable that you can shift and the other locks the shift fork.

I'd probably try to fix the actual problem though.  If that doesn't work, I'd go with the XJ/TJ shafts.   You'll also be upgrading the shaft U-joints from 260x to 297 series.

[GrimJeeper]

Jeffy

Thanks for the reply.  I'll start by checking the lines associated with the 4wd. If that doesn't work I'll look into the Power-Lok suggestion.  Cost being always a concern is it cheaper to fix the current system or go with the alternative Power Lok.  I guess I'm thinking if I have to replace some stock parts can I expect to get nailed by the local Jeep stealership.

Thanks Again  :D

[Jeffy]

Go to the FAQ Forum and grab the 1994 FSM .pdf files. :wink: