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Old 12-16-2016, 04:49 PM
Electronic M's Avatar
Electronic M Electronic M is offline
M is for Memory
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Pewaukee/Delafield Wi
Posts: 14,758
Don't pick at scabs...

I wanted to test/diagnose the system further today. Last night I read the owners manual and it said that the 2Hi, A4WD, and 4Hi settings could be switched between at any speed. And I figured "well if I try it in 4 wheel mode again and things go wrong I can just go back immediately to 2 and be fine, so another test should be safe"...Bad Idea.

It snowed last night so I tested it again on the morning commute and since the roads were better cleared around where it first freaked out last time, I shifted back to 2 wheel mode just before I got there (and made sure the 2Hi indicator came on solid), and thought "great nothing went wrong or acted up, I can use A4WD mode in bad conditions" and proceeded on happily.
About a mile later it suddenly starts to sound bad..."But I'm in 2Hi; it never does this in 2Hi", I thought. I looked down and the selector knob was still in 2Hi but the indicator light for A4WD was on...The damn thing changed transfer case modes on it's own! ...Worse yet it did not want to go back to 2Hi, and was banging and shuddering pretty bad. After one of the worse bangs I started to hear a gear clatter sort of like the ratchet arm on a hand crank winch...I was starting to think it was not going to make it to the red light half a block up, but it did. I again tried while stopped at the light to shift into 2Hi and this time it obliged, and stayed in 2Hi (even through my drive to lunch).

I'm starting to think the transfer case and or it's control system may be more at fault here. Those service docs make me question the rotary encoder on the shift motor.

With this last bit of engineers curiosity/optimism (short of being stuck in a snow bank or totally unable to get moving on ice) I'm not going to intentionally shift the transfer case out of 2Hi until road salt season is over... I don't want to brick my power train during a time a time of year where it would not be good to use the Lincoln as a fall back.

On a positive note a few days ago I unintentionally confirmed I have ABS and that it seems to work.
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Last edited by Electronic M; 12-16-2016 at 04:56 PM.
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