What would be the best way to clean the lines out?

 

Mine is a 95 and just took it my transmission guy and he pulled it, changed the input seal, vaccum switch and replaced all the vaccum lines for $293.00. I thought that was pretty fair. I also replaced the vacuum resevor(little black ball mounted under hood on driver side), which was saturated. Also had to replace the servo mounted under the battery tray. It was also saturated and basically mush from trans fluid. That stuff gets into everything. All from that one transfer case seal.

 

I finally got around to dropping the transfer case. I replaced the front seal, the switch at the top of the transfer case, and the actuator under the battery. Once I got it all back together, the transfer case makes the appropriate noises as I switch from 2 to 4-wheel drive... but no 4-wheel drive. After some troubleshooting, I determined that there is no vacuum at the actuator under the battery. If I pull the cable with pliers, I do get 4-wheel drive.

On the transfer case, I removed the plug assembly at the switch on the case, the plug with three lines on it. I also removed a hose at the top of the case. I assume that it is a vent. I disconnected two electrical connectors, one that was a push together and one that was held in place by a screw/bolt. When I assembled the case, I made sure each of the four disconnects were reconnected.

I don't understand the process well enough to understand what to do next. Any help? Appreciated.

 

Sounds like you have a bad vac line. When I went through the whole thing you did, tracked it down from the actuator back. Dissconected actuator vac line and blew in it, I heard hissing by the firewall and found a burned through section. Cut it back to good line and used a line connector to splice new line back up to actuator. Now I could see there was some vac at actuator but not enough to pull it all the way. Now took it off at actuator and blew again, still some hissing but much more towards the back. Got a long lengh of line connected it to the first splice and fed it under the truck. With it on jack stands crawled around underneath blowing and listening. Found that the three prong line connector to new vac switch was worn and dry not making good seal. Some people have put a bit of assorted tapes around the prongs on the switch to make the seal. What I did was made the connections back to the actuator. Got it started with battery and tray still out pushed the 4h in neutral. With a long brush slathered the the three lines on top of the connetor the connector and the switch with liquid black electric tape. As the vacum drew it in the seal was made. Actuator pulled all the way in, couple hours later glopped on another coat. Still holding and working two years, knock on wood........Did you blow the fluid out of the lines when it was apart?

 

UPDATE: still no 4-wheel drive. The actuator under the battery is pulling, but it is not pulling the cable far enough to engage the axle.

RECAP: new front transfer case seal, new vacuum switch (on transfer case), new vacuum actuator (under battery), new vacuum line from engine source at one-way valve to vacuum switch on transfer case, new vacuum line from vacuum switch on transfer case to vacuum actuator under battery. I also disconnected the actuator cable at both ends to check for cable binding. The cable -seems- to pull easily. I reconnected the cable at the differential and manually pulled cable from battery end. Four wheel did engage. If I apply vacuum to the vacuum actuator under the battery with the cable disconnected, the vacuum actuator pulls fully in. If I apply vacuum to the actuator under the battery with it connected at battery end but not at differential, it does not pull fully. So... bad cable? Weak vacuum? I bypassed all vacuum lines at the one-way valve and sent full engine vacuum to the vacuum actuator on the transfer case. Cable still did not pull fully. The only thing I did not try was putting engine vacuum directly to the actuator under the battery.

What think? Even though the actuator cable -seems- to pull freely, I think it is the problem... but with me being a dumb fxxx who is probably overlooking something, I would prefer a second opinion.

 

It really does not sound like the cable but who knows. The first actuator I bought came with a very cheesy spring clip, it might not be holding. Lucky I live were there are still a few good small hardware stores that I could stand in front of the spring draws. Found one that fit and bent the right angle.

The actuator I bought was less then 50 with very thin rubber, failed in a heartbeat. I was able to get a junkyard late model original for about the same and is working well.

How about this. Get some kids bubble stuff, coat the actuator well and blow on the hose. With the actuator blown up if you see bubbles you know you got a crap one like me.

 

my 2002 blszer extreme has trans fulid coming out of filler tub and vent seems to be ok so what should I do next