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Hello everyone,
I've been a Surf owner for a couple years now in the United States(1996 Hilux Surf-SSR-X with the 3rz 2.7 in it) and came to this forum for some help. My 4wd will no longer engage, I've had it in and out of the mechanic shop for the past few months as a result. It stopped working sometime in November I believe, I was trying to fire it up and the 4wd indicator light wouldn't turn on nor was I hearing anything else engaging. I brought the truck into a mechanic to have them take a look at it and he told me that my 4wd Actuator diaphragm had a hole in it and that's what he suspects is the root of the problem because when he engaged the 4wd it was sucking air and seemed to be working otherwise, so we went ahead and got the new actuator ordered and installed(specifically one for an American 4runner). Well instead of that being the end of the issues he discovered that there must be some other issue because the 4wd still wouldn't engage and he managed to trace it back to 4wd control module where he discovered that it was not outputting the expected 12v. After doing some digging he wasn't able to source a new module so he tried a used one from an American 4runner and that didn't work so just to be certain he ordered another used one and tried that and again all 3 modules including the original are not outputting the needed 12v to signal the transfer case to engage. He thought he might be able to offer me a custom option where he wires in a bypass just to get the transfer case to engage but that turned out to be undoable as well. He did full electrical testing on my truck and checked all the wiring just to make sure he wasn't missing anything somewhere else, but at this point the mechanic shop has basically told me they can't fix it. They don't know what's wrong and can't seem to figure out a way to get my 4wd working again.
I thought I'd start hitting up the forums to see if anyone else has encountered this kind of issue with their 4wd and knows of a fix. A couple ideas I've had is
1. Is it possibly something to do with the newly installed actuator?
2. Would ordering Hilux Surf specific parts make any difference if I can find them? I've been told by many people that the Surf should have nearly 100% parts compatibility with American 4runners.
Also it would seem that due to my truck being manufactured in the latter end of 1996 it actually has wiring diagram more similar to that of the 1997 Surf.
Obviously since the mechanic did a lot of the leg work on this we're playing a bit of the telephone game here. I'd consider myself very mechanically inclined and overall have no issue working on my own stuff. Mainly though I bring things into the shop to save me time and overall convenience but the way this issue seems to be going I'm likely going to be doing my own repairs to get this 4wd working.
Enjoy my first post novel :banghead:
I've been a Surf owner for a couple years now in the United States(1996 Hilux Surf-SSR-X with the 3rz 2.7 in it) and came to this forum for some help. My 4wd will no longer engage, I've had it in and out of the mechanic shop for the past few months as a result. It stopped working sometime in November I believe, I was trying to fire it up and the 4wd indicator light wouldn't turn on nor was I hearing anything else engaging. I brought the truck into a mechanic to have them take a look at it and he told me that my 4wd Actuator diaphragm had a hole in it and that's what he suspects is the root of the problem because when he engaged the 4wd it was sucking air and seemed to be working otherwise, so we went ahead and got the new actuator ordered and installed(specifically one for an American 4runner). Well instead of that being the end of the issues he discovered that there must be some other issue because the 4wd still wouldn't engage and he managed to trace it back to 4wd control module where he discovered that it was not outputting the expected 12v. After doing some digging he wasn't able to source a new module so he tried a used one from an American 4runner and that didn't work so just to be certain he ordered another used one and tried that and again all 3 modules including the original are not outputting the needed 12v to signal the transfer case to engage. He thought he might be able to offer me a custom option where he wires in a bypass just to get the transfer case to engage but that turned out to be undoable as well. He did full electrical testing on my truck and checked all the wiring just to make sure he wasn't missing anything somewhere else, but at this point the mechanic shop has basically told me they can't fix it. They don't know what's wrong and can't seem to figure out a way to get my 4wd working again.
I thought I'd start hitting up the forums to see if anyone else has encountered this kind of issue with their 4wd and knows of a fix. A couple ideas I've had is
1. Is it possibly something to do with the newly installed actuator?
2. Would ordering Hilux Surf specific parts make any difference if I can find them? I've been told by many people that the Surf should have nearly 100% parts compatibility with American 4runners.
Also it would seem that due to my truck being manufactured in the latter end of 1996 it actually has wiring diagram more similar to that of the 1997 Surf.
Obviously since the mechanic did a lot of the leg work on this we're playing a bit of the telephone game here. I'd consider myself very mechanically inclined and overall have no issue working on my own stuff. Mainly though I bring things into the shop to save me time and overall convenience but the way this issue seems to be going I'm likely going to be doing my own repairs to get this 4wd working.
Enjoy my first post novel :banghead: