I have a 2006 ranger stuck in 4WD. I am trying to replace the shift motor. But when I removed the old motor, it's like the shaft detents have shifted a quarter turn and now don't line up with anything. The arrow shaped transfer case shaft is pointing to about 11 O'clock, which is halfway between the 2H and 4H marks on the case. I can manually rotate the shaft to about 4 O'clock, which would be enough rotation to be pointing at 4H if it had been pointing at 2H to start with. The new shift motor arrived aligned such that it would pointing at 2H mark on the transfer case. I can energize it and move it to 4H or 4L but because the shaft is not pointing to any position the shift motor indexes to, I cannot mount the new motor. The truck was driving fine until it got stuck in 4WD. Any idea how to fix this.

 

I don't quite understand what you are describing. I have never replaced a shift motor, but you should have been able to rotate the transfer case shaft to the 2H position and mount the motor also in the 2H position.

If you don't already know, the positions on the motor are a mirror image to the positions on the transfer case shaft.

 

The problem is that the shaft will not stop pointing at the 2H position. It will only stop at 2 positions: one is at about 11 o'clock between the 2H and 4H position and the other is at about 4 o'clock between the 4H and 4L positions. It is as though the stop positions have been shifted over a quarter turn to the right. Since the motor stop positions are at the correct 2H, 4H and 4L positions, there is no way to line up the motor with the shaft.