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Shift motor replacement - Removing/Replacing the Brown Wire

hamptonhills

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January 31, 2012
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City, State
NY
Year, Model & Trim Level
98 B4000
My B4000 Mazda truck recently got stuck in 4WD low. After searching and reading a lot of threads in the forums, I was able to diagnose the problem as a bad shift motor, which seems to be a rather common problem. It wasn't fixable, so I had to replace it.

The new shift motor comes with only seven of the eight wires in the shift motor plug. The eighth wire (the brown wire) is attached directly to the xfer case. Make sure you DON'T pull this wire out of the xfer case! I started to tug on it a little, but when it didn't come out easily I decided to do a little more thread searching. Several threads mentioned that the brown wire has to be transferred to the new shift motor connector. While this sounds easy ( and it actually is ), it took a little while to figure out exactly how to do it.

Since I've been a consumer of the wealth of info on this site for a while, I figured that it was time to contribute a little, so I hope that this info helps someone out.

Here is a pic of the shift motor connector with the red shim installed.

DSC00020.jpg


I used a small flat jeweler's screwdriver to carefully pry out the red shim in between the two rows of connectors.

DSC00025.jpg


Here is a pic of the shift motor connector with the red shim removed. Note:: the brown wire has already been removed. Also this is what the connector looked like when I received the new shift motor. It didn't include a new red shim so I had to use the one from the old connector. Sorry I didn't take a pic of the red shim.

DSC00022.jpg


The wire and connector pin are still held firmly in place by a little locking finger inside the connector so don't try to pull out the wire yet. You have to use the jewel's screwdriver again to pull back the locking finger to release the connector pin.

You do this by inserting the screwdriver in the space between the two connector rows where the red shim was located.

DSC00027.jpg


You have to get the screwdriver under the locking finger and move the finger away from the pin connector and SIMULTANEOUSLY pull the wire out from the back of the connector.

I cut the old connector in half so you can see the locking finger and get a better idea of how it works. Since the connector is off the truck the pin that is extracted in the following pics, is not the actual brown wire. The pics are only meant to show the pin locking mechanism and how to release it.

Here is the connector cut in half with the pins installed.

DSC00028.jpg


This pic shows the screwdriver under the locking finger.

DSC00029.jpg


Lifting the finger releases the connector pin so that you can pull it out from the back of the connector.

You can see the detent on the connector pin that engages with the locking finger in this pic.

DSC00023.jpg


Here is a pic of the connector with the pin removed.

DSC00030.jpg


Once the connector pin has been removed, you just insert it into the new connector and insert the red shim.
 






Nice write-up!
 






Ok im in need of some help.
Bought a used 98 truck that needs tcase shift motor. I picked one up at the local junk yard.
The one i got doesnt have this brown wire.
There is brown wire coming from the tcase tho.
 












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