4wd problems - help!

[teapot]

Hello

Attempting to find the cause of the long problem of my 3rd gen surf not engaging 4wd I though I'd see if the the selector actuator was sticking. The actuator came away from it's housing a bit easier than I was expecting and the contacts have rotated from their original postion. I guess that now the thing is really bollxd as even if I find what the fault was ( it's not the actuator selector as all the contacts lok ok and nothing was broken) the motor will power up and as actuator is likely to be out of postion I could have made the problem a whole lot worse. Does anyone how these can be reset their correct position.

Below is a photo of the removed bit.

Any thoughts gratefully received.

[solent_surfer]

I had a similar problem on mine and it took a good number of hours plotting the contacts and referencing them to the disc of brass rails. I wish I'd have made some notes but I didn't.
I disconnected the switch on the top of the gearbox which detects whether the box is in 4wd and used that to see if the box was working correctly. Also I jacked all 4 wheels of the ground and manually engaged 4wd to check the spine was in the correct position to the hole of the actuated. Took a great deal of patience but it paid off.

Best of luck with it though

[teapot]

Cheers for the response solent surfer - I am not too sure how you went about referencing to the contacts, If you could provide a bit more detail that would be great. Thanks

[solent_surfer]

Cheers for the response solent surfer - I am not too sure how you went about referencing to the contacts, If you could provide a bit more detail that would be great. Thanks

I can't remember how it came off, but the housing could be split and inside is a disc which rotates . printed on the disk are brass 'tracks' that cross over with each other and make contact with the 4 or 5 contacts on the inner part of the switch mech. as the disc rotates the tracks make contact with different combinations of the contacts within which in turn determine what you see on the dash and the position of the 4wd engagement.

by manually rotating the disc with the ignition on, i could see at which point the 4wd ligtr was on/ intermediate/ off so could then see at what point the engagement of 4wd was at in the gearbox. I was working blind at the time as there was little knowledge of the subject on here at the time. I was probably more lucky than anything but sorted it in the end. Mine was the opposite i think, it was stuck IN 4wd. I'll help if i can, regards, Mark

p.s. if i can clarify any of the above i will, just ask

[teapot]

Cheers for that - the problem I have is that the car is engaged in 2wd and has been for some time. Your suggestion to rotate the disc with the ignition may help determine whether power is getting to the disc. If it is I will still have to check the motor as this may the source of the initial problem. I wonder how much damage - if any would be caused if the motor is ativated with the disc in the wrong position.

All the best