So I was driving home tonight and my 4wd light started flickering real quick then stayed on for a min and shut off. I checked and my lever was in 2wd. What might have caused this?

 

Maybe something got wet.

 

either a vacuum leak on the cad, losing vac on the 2wd line which allows the shift fork (and collar) to flop around and contact the light switch...

or malfunctioning light switch on the end of the cad. remove connector and clean out the mud and snow and salt.

...my daughter lives in Iowa....

http://dodgeram.org/tech/repair/4X4/4x4_engagment.htm

 

I'll have to give that a try tonight. I also noticed last week that it took a while to disengage from 4wd, so I am thinking vacuum now. I will give it a try and see what happens.

What part of Iowa does she live in??

 

Iowa City.

 

I see I live in Winterset birthplace of John Wayne. Its by Desire Moines.

Well I cleaned the connections and it felt like that vacuum canister or whatever it is was loose. Could that be bad I can't seem to get it to stay tight. And now my 4wd light is stuck on.

 

world keeps getting smaller. my daughter-in-law's grandfather grew up in Winterset. They went back there to visit last summer.

the CAD is a pain in the butt, but fairly simple.
first- make sure you have strong vac in one line in 2wd and strong vac on the other when in 4wd. if so, continue. if not, stop and fix that.

soak the 4 little cad bolts liberally with penetrating oil to try and prevent them from breaking. if i remember right, the cad might sort of rotate up on top.

remove the electrical connector from the end of the cad and test it. if you short the 2 pins it should illuminate the 4wd light in the dash.

remove the contract switch from the end of the cad and test that. when the ball is depressed by the shift fork it should turn on the light. when not pressed, the ball should spring open to turn the light off.

if all that's ok, its time to remove the cad and test it with a vacuum source. the internal shaft likes to rust up and stick.

 

Wow it is a small world, especially since Winterset is a pretty small town at around 5,000 people I think.

Thanks for your help with this. I finally found the problem last night. One of the hard vacuum lines had a small crack in it right before the connection above the transmission. It must have been pretty small but after pulling on it so many times I saw it and cut the bad part out. Now it works like new.

Oh, and sorry for all the spelling and word mistakes. After re-reading I see I had a few. My dumb phone automatically fills in a word if it doesn't recognize what I type in and I didn't pay enough attention to what was filling in.

 

glad you got it fixed. enjoy it.

daughter-in-laws grandfather is Clinton Jones.