i've been reading up on the transfer case shifter because of a problem i will adress in a second. i realize that posting topics for things already discussed becomes annoying but it seems many people dont understand the transfer case shifting pattern or maybe i dont. i hear it described as an "H" pattern, also the pic on the dash makes it look like more of a square figure 8, but i understand it is more like a backward c. the shifter has 5 positions low,neu, high on the right, then slide to the left from high for "locked" high, or slide to left from low for "locked" low. Am i correct or can you just go around any way you want for instance from neu strait left then down for locked high, or from locked high strait up two notches to locked low? with that out, heres my deal:
i when offroad the other day every thing worked fine high to low low to locked low. so today i try to put it in low, wont go. yes under 5 neutral blah blah, it will go to diff lock but not low,surely the linkage didn't lock up over night, so is there a silonoid or something i shorted out. i saw something about a silonoid in another post

 

oh yea 94 140,000 miles if that matters

 

Yes you can shift any way you want.
Yes there is a solniod that prevents you from shifting the t-case when in the wrong gear.
Yes that solnoid does go bad, most people just remove it and dont worry about it.

 

The trans case has 6 positions. Top left is locked CDL, low gear. Top right is unlocked CDL high gear. Either side, center height (the cross bar on the "H") is in neutral, even if you put it in park you can still roll in neutral so be wary of this gear. Bottom left is locked CDL, high gear and bottom right is the normal unlocked CDL high gear. What does all this mean? You can shift from any position to any adjacent position.

Could be a number of reasons it won't shift. I do shift it at least once a month if I haven't been off road in a while, and even when I've been using regularly with no problems sometimes it will give some trouble. I even had it get stuck in high with the diff locked once when I was late to work. Just keep working at it, if it doesn't move after another few minutes of work you may have to look into freeing up the linkage.

 

cool good to know so the crazy figure eight is in fact an eight. and it is not out of the ordinary to lose this silonoid after running you truck through muddy water up to the doors.

 

Can you still shift high to low, unlocked, if you can, it is not the solenoid.

 

it is stuck in high, i CAN slide it left to lock the diff but it wont go up to low

 

well i took out the solenoid and she works perfect all figure eight movements so my conclusion:

if it moves up and down but not side to side; its probably the linkage frooze lots of lube and a little more offroadind is in order

if it moves side to side but not up and down; probably the solenoid you could replace it but removing it is much cheaper and garentees it will never mess up again

if it dosent move at all; one or both could be the problem

 

for future knowledge, how exactly did you go about removing the solenoid? was it a tough job?

 

You have two positions with unlocked CDL high range, and no unlocked CDL low range? (you say top right and bottom right are)