i have a 99 ford ranger and i was testing out the four wheel drive today and kinda ran into problems...it my manul it says that i dont have to put it in reverse to get it out of 4wd but if i dont do that and i put it in 2wd its still in 4wd i jacked it up 2day and watched the shaft spin...is this normal or whats up

 

Wait the manual said that when you put it in reverse it switches to 2wd?

 

no, in some older trucks you put it in reverse after you shift out of 4wd to disengage the 4wd.

Your front driveshaft will spin all the time but there shouldn't be any power to the front wheels

 

it shouldn't always be spinning if the PHV system is working correctly

 

really, I thought the front driveshaft always spun unless you have manual hubs

 

no, the PHV hubs, nothing was supposed to spin, they were like manual hubs, but vacuum activated as far as i know.. i mean what other purpose would they serve?

yours on the other hand, they always spin lol

 

Oh that's right, I forgot he has PHV hubs, didn't pay attention to 99

 

nice of you to get with the program



i dont think i have said anything useful for this thread yet.. let me re read the origional post and see what i can think of


maybe one of the hubs is sticky.. i know my manual ones dont always disengage right away.. how long after u pulled it out of 4x4 did u look at the drive shaft?

 

I was just making sure you were paying attention, this was just a test on your part.

Yeah, something is wrong haha

 

i have my father drive at me while im looking under the truck and in 2wd the shaft and the shaft to the tires are still spinning with power i even had it jakced up to test it. also i notice there is alot of front end noise while driving is that normal?

 

i have an electric t-case and manual hubs and my drive shaft doesnt spin unless the t-case is locked in

 

I had the same problems in and learned a lot about how the 4wd works on a ranger...
When switching to and from 4wd hi-2wd, nothing really is required except maybe throwing it to neutral (in a manual tranny), when going from 4wd hi to 4wd lo, you must be in nuetral with the brake & clutch pedal pushed and going less than 2mph, and the same coming out of it. when switching to 4wd hi/lo there is a vacuum pulse that fully depresses a diaphram oh both hubs and releases the pulse engaging the hub. when switching back to 2wd there is a shorter pulse that partially depresses the diaphram and releases the hub. Just like a retractable pen! (it's more techie than that but you get it)

Now then I had a vacuum leak and I found that out because I jacked up the front end while in 2wd, and with the parking brake set (which only affects the rear wheels in case you didn't know) I was able to spin the front drive shaft and it in turn spun the front tires and when I put it in 4wd I could not spin it, which means the transfer case was working.

I later capped the lines going to the PVH and did the manual hub conversion. I leave them locked in most the time causing about 35-45 mile per tank of gas loss..(around town) and recently replaced my front pinion seal but it started leaking after 20K miles of hub conversion, and 126K on the odometer. other than that no side effects.

Hope this helps

Billy