so i put the truck in the shop for this mystery problem, got it back out and my 4x4 wont engage. i know the mother fers did somethin to it but i cant prove it. it was workin fine before it went in the shop.

anyway, the light wont come on but you can hear it try to engage. where do i start now?

 

transfer case shift lever is where I would start. Take off the lever and try going through the gears. what did the shop do to the truck. did they have to remove the tranny? Check your transfer case.

 

they were stopin a tranny leak at the dipstick... or so they say. i have noticed a hose hangin down that says transfer case on it... has a metal tube with a hole that looks like a bolt should go through. someone told me its ventelation but im not sure. gearshift is shiftin fine.

 

Check the front axle on the inside of the passenger side where your central axle disconnect is. There should bea set of vacuum lines connected to the CAD as well as a two wire 12 volt connector which is for your das light. The axle vent tube also connects to this area. It sounds like maybe they left some stuff unplugged when working on it.

It is also common to get the lines caught on stuff when offroading and having them get disconnected too.

 

I had a problem with my 4x4 when I had not used it for a while. I started at the vacuum system and checked the lines. Check both ends to make sure there is vacuum. That is what moves the 4x4 collar into place. I had vacuum so then I opened up the case on the front axle. It's only four bolts and it's located on the rear of the front axle towards the passenger side. It will leak some gear oil out, but you will have a good look at the gears inside. I moved mine around by hand and checked to make sure it would go on and off the gears, then I filled it up with new gear oil and put it back together. Worked fine ever since. I can't explain why, but it didn't seem to have anything wrong with it. I would recommed trying that because all you have to buy is some gear oil and spend the time under the truck.

 

alright checked the lines, nothins disconnected. im very suspicious because it was working 5 days ago and we didnt even get any mud... no such thing right now. ill pull the cover off tommrow and see what it looks like.

 

There is a PITA vacuum line that runs from the the TOP of the t-case to the front. I guarentee thats the problem. I'm sure they did it while fixing your problem but not on purpose. Its a vacuum problem. Follow all the times, I bet they're just unpluged on top of the tcase

 

Two things.

1st, people are way to quick to blame the shop for stuff like this. Often times, the problem existed beforehand, but people are much more critical about this stuff after the vehicle has been worked on. I can't count how many times I've been blamed for problems that people only noticed after I did service work. Fortunately, I'm very conscientous and make careful notes of vehicle damage or pre-existing problems, and all it takes is pointing to the notation on the invoice.

Secondly, don't, I repeat, DO NOT go around badmouthing them until you've given them a chance to A) see if the problem is even related to the work they did and B) if so, take care of it. Things do happen sometimes and a good shop will fix it expediently and with apologies. Only if it is definitely something they caused and they refuse to fix it do you have the right to rant about them.

There certainly are shady shops that do slapshod work and send the customer packing. But more often I find that someone made an honest mistake and rather than take it back and give them the opportunity to make it right, people will go somewhere else to have it fixed and then scream about how they got screwed.

I get people in all the time making a big fuss about something that is broken or inoperative and how everything was fine before X shop two towns over worked on it. More often than not, I discover that their problem had absolutely nothing to do with the repairs the other shop made. Something the other shop should have noticed? Perhaps, but not their fault the problem existed. Just money they lost by not being thorough.

Now, there are basically four possible causes of your problem. One, shift linkage is not connected. Two, transfer case is fragged. Three, disconnected or broken vacuum line, switch or actuator. Four, the slip collar, fork or axle stubs are damaged/broken.

Most often, it is either a diconnected line, bad switch or leaking actuator diaphragm.

 

http://www.4x4wire.com/dodge/tech/solid_axle_cad/
http://www.dodgeram.org/tech/repair/...CAD_engagement

 

Ifhe knew his trucks 4wd system worked before bringing it in for tranny repairs and then it didn't work after the tranny repairs, it doesn't take a genius to figure out the shop had something to do with that.

As said above, if they pulled the tranny down, then they also had to pull the t-case down, so if they didn't hook up the vent line after repairs as you have stated, then they probably didn't hook up the vacuum lines at the top of the t-case either.

I had you check the connections at the CAD first because it's the easiest to check. Now that you have eliminated the CAD connections, I second the advice to check the vacuum line connection at the top of the t-case. You can get to it easiest by reaching up on the drivers side of the t-case, but the connection is pretty much at the top.

Another place to check is where the vacuum originates from and sends it to the t-case. That connection is on the passenger side of the engine right next to the throttle body. It is a "T" connection that sends a vacuum line down to the t-case.

Hope you get ti fixed soon.