Front passenger tire 4x4 engaged

[TheDuck648]

'01 XLT 4x4

Front right tire is engaged all the time, have tried disconnecting battery and it doesnt do anything. The drivers side is normal and disengages. In the summer where there is no chance of ice, I just disconnect the 4x4 all together so the front wheels don't engage. But as soon as it's connected back up for winter, the right tire engages.

How do I solve this problem?

-Duck

 

[J_C]

This seems strange to me because they both engage simultaneously at the transfer case.

It almost seems like you would have to have a constantly engaged transfer case PLUS your front differential is damaged?

What have you been doing to "disconnect the 4x4 all together"? Normally people just do the brown wire mod which prevents power from getting to the transfer case solenoid to prevent activating 4x4.

This is assuming you have the V6 with 4WD, not the V8 with AWD. It would be good to have that info show up on every post by having it in your profile so it shows up on the left hand column of your post, and/or in your sig.

 

[drdoom]

Check the shaft speed sensors on the transfer case using ForScan, see what the readings are on live data.
Also check your tires to confirm they all match in circumference.
That's what I would do first.

 

[TheDuck648]

Its a V6 4WD

To get it to disengage, I have to disconect the wire from the transfer case and my dad just said (it's his everyday) that he isn't even sure if it is fully disengaging. He has been voicing concern about the differential recently. He did replace the differential a few years back, he said some of the sounds he hears he's never heard for a bad one.

 

[koda2000]

Your front diff is an OPEN diff. As such when 4x4 is engaged the front wheel with the least traction gets all the power, so saying that the front right wheel is engaged doesn't make any sense. If the t-case is not disengaging for some reason power would go to both front wheels. Typically this makes it very hard to make turns as the inside driven front wheel would bind with the rear wheels, How are you determining that only the front right wheel is getting power?

 

[J_C]

What I am guessing, is that either the speed sensors aren't syncing (which drdoom mentioned) so 4WD is coming on when it shouldn't, or the clutch itself is locked up, that either way you have 4WD when you shouldn't, and it's not so much the right wheel and not the left wheel effected but rather, you are just observing a difference in the right wheel skipping traction a lot more because right hand turns tend to be sharper turns than left hand because we drive on the right lane of roads. The sharper the turn radius, the more the wheel on the inside of that turn has to skip traction to stay in gear with the other side.

I don't think it is the clutch locked up because it would be quite a coincidence if it just started happening when you hooked the wire connector backup.

By the way, look into that "brown wire mod" to disable 4WD if you intend to do this seasonally, because it is not a good idea to leave an electrical connector under the vehicle, unplugged and exposed to environmental contamination and oxidation. You may eventually lose the ability to go into 4WD at all.