Well, it's been several years since I've been on this site...personal reasons that don't matter to anyone but me.

Anyway, after several years of faithful service (about 65K miles) the Dakota has let me down.

This morning started the truck up and put it into Drive and nothing happened...checked that it was indeed in Drive and slowly pushed the accelerator...nada. Checked transmission oil and there was plenty there...

Shifted through all the gears and nothing...it just sat there. On a lark I flipped the switch to 4HI and after some loud clicking/clunking and a thunk I found I could move the truck.

Now, the problem...it won't shift out of 4HI and the "Service 4WD" drive light is on. I tried running it forward & backward to disengage the 4WD, I pulled the negative cable on the battery to see if that would help (it didn't).

I am about 80 miles from home and was wondering if there is anything I should check before I attempt to drive it home and take it to a local mechanic.

thanks!

 

Sounds like internal issues to me, nothing you can check.

 

have you looked underneath? if it drives the front wheels then you know it is engaging, sounds like a mechanical issue with the rear output shaft if it still drives the front wheels? how far would you have to drive it to get it home and to a mechanic?

 

I'll crawl under to see if anything came loose.

I have 80miles to make it home...

 

dont know if I would risk driving it 80 miles in 4wd unless it was a rainy day....

 

drive it, but make sure you dont go over 50 mph, just take it easy, if its internal, they are gonna have to rip it apart anyways. drive it in reverse if you have too

 

Went out this morning and crawled under the truck...no unusual play in the drive shafts, felt all the way around for anything loose...nada

Put the key in and switched the key to 'on' to open up the windows and I could here the transfer case clicking and the Service 4WD light went out....

Started it up backed it out of the parking spot and it seems that 4hi has disengaged...weird.

Still gonna be taking in to to get it looked at when I get home...thanks for all your suggestions.

 

The transfer case motor could be on its way out.