Broken Transfer Case?

[Old Car Scott]

So I inherited a 1998 Ford Explorer 4x4 4.0 V6 from my folks knowing it had a few problems.

One was that if the thing was put into 4W low it would get "stuck" there and I'd have to put it into Auto and disconnect the battery and it would "reset" itself.

Well my 3 year old son, bless his little heart, was playing around with the dash switches when we stopped to get slurpees. When I started the car the rear window wiper came on so I knew the little dude had been fooling around with the dash knobs and such.

Well.... he activated the 4W low switch too.

I was an hour from home, I had dropped my kid off with my ex-wife, and was about ready to go home.

Well, like my Pop said, it got stuck in 4 wheel drive, but I turned it off, disconnected the battery, put the switch back to Auto, reconnected it and everything looked okay. No dash lights indicating it was in 4 wheel.

However, going down the road, seeming like it was in normal gear then the OD off light started flashing. I pulled over, Googled it, said that indicated it was likely still in 4WD. Low and behold, the 4WD Low and High dash lights started blinking at that point in addition to the OD off light.


So I was driving around a Home Depot parking lot, disconnecting the battery, doing a few other things I'd read on the interwebs, and the last time I tried I got about 25 feet from where I'd parked when I got a POP BANG GRIND!! It no longer moved in forward or reverse and it would grind when putting it into park.

I tried pushing it with the engine on in Neutral, no dice, I could not move that thing.

Turned off the engine, lo and behold! It rolled!

I pushed into a parking spot and eventually called a tow because like the Creedence Clearwater song, I was literally "Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again..."



So the $50,000 question; what do you assume broke and how do you fix it?

It's 104 degrees in the air right now and it hasn't reached the peak temp yet so I'm not quite ready to dive under it on the black asphalt in front of my house to do some diagnostics, but in eight hours or so I will.

 

[Old Car Scott]

I just realized this is my first post, but I've been here since December, so I guess I should say "Howdy everyone!" first.

 

[drdoom]

Hi Scott. I'm trying to figure out when and how the proper range shifting procedure fits in here. I mean the little angel would have had to shift into neutral while holding the brake then hit the switch lol. So let us know how you are shifting ranges. When It's stuck, do you mean that holding the brake, shifting into neutral, then hitting the switch, it still won't disengage? Now as for what broke, maybe the fork pads or range collar may be stripped, or maybe other worn parts or the encoder motor. You can pull the shift encoder motor to check it's basic operations. Post back up and welcome to the board.