Interesting. I see your confusion now and what you are trying to do. I never realized that we had a natural tow mode option on the original V6 set up.
I hadn't realized it was an option until I joined the forum a few years ago - I thought all of the Explorer's had it.
I never heard of anyone doing this before. I see how what you are talking about could work but I feel you are right in that on a normal stock set up as soon as you restart the vehicle and take it out of neutral, it will come out of 4H with a 4406. I would love to see someone figure out how to keep the shift motor in the 4H position on a 4406!
That's the downside of me not getting into this aspect of my Explorer until now - a lot of the people that did a lot of the technical legwork on this forum don't appear to be all that active any longer.
Expeditions had the function of 2wd, 4 auto, 4 high, & 4 low, but I don't think anyone has ever done it in an Explorer, to my knowledge.
Outside of the brown wire mod, earlier Expeditions didn't seem to have that option - at least, not something that you could manually switch to.
I've got a 2000 Expedition Eddie Bauer with a 5.4L, and the switch is only A4WD - 4H - 4L.
That's another aspect of what confuses me, since I don't have a 2H option, though I do see switches available for the '03+ Expeditions that are 2H - A4WD - 4H - 4L.
So, I guess what I'm interpreting is:
The BW4405 in the V6 Explorer has the following positions: H - N - L
The BW4406 in the Expedition has the following positions: 2H - 4H - 4L
Since there's ControlTrac in the Expedition/BW4406, I'm assuming that 2H on the transfer case is the "A4WD" selection on the switch.
In an Expedition/4406, moving the switch to 4H would mechanically lock the transfer case into 4H, likewise with 4L.
In an Explorer/4405, however, moving the switch from Auto to High would leave the transfer case mechanically in the H position, but the electronic clutch engages full-time, instead of when sensing the need, whereas moving to Low would lock mechanically lock the transfer case into the L position.
Without any modification, a 4406 in a 4WD Explorer would never move into the 4H position, and there is no longer any option for neutral tow, save disconnecting the drive shaft.
Since the neutral tow kit isn't a physical switch (it's a programming option enabling something in the computer, I believe, along with the little indicator light), one would never really get the ability to manually shift into 4H - that position on the switch wouldn't affect anything (as far as I can tell).
