I saw someone posted about this a few years ago but there wasn’t an answer.

I’ve been having trouble with my 4x4 the past couple weeks so I decided to take off my transfer case motor to see if it was working or not. It was so I went to go put it on but the shaft coming out of the transfer case is 180 degrees the wrong way. I tried manually turning the shaft to the point where I heard a pop in the transfer case. I put the motor back on and test drove it and I could barely accelerate forwards. So I put it in reverse to go back up my drive way and all of a sudden my RPM’s were at 5000 without touching the gas pedal. I know I also need a new brake light sensor(was gonna drive to auto store to get a new one). Any information will be helpful

 

Brother I hope you get some answers because I'm having the same issue. It's like the shaft is 180° out of position and I can't turn it far enough to my to get it to line up with the transfer case motor. Good luck to you. I'll be checking back tomorrow hoping you got an answer from someone.

 

Did you guys put the gear shift in neutral before trying to move that shaft manually? That's the trick.

 

Yessir I did and I can turn the shaft, just not far enough to where it needs to be for the motor to line up?
Edit: I was able to get the shaft flipped back to it's correct position by turning it with a crescent wrench while at the same time turning the driveshaft after I jacked the rear wheels up off the ground. It fell into gear and the transfer case motor would then line up with the shaft

 

I took a look in my 2013 manual, and this is what it says about installing the shift motor after a complete rebuild. (for what it's worth)
I don't know if it will help, but the assembly order seems to be important?

 

Noting I'm looking at the manual as well. It says upon removal make sure the vehicle is in neutral. It doesn't mention anything about having to realign the spline. Perhaps that is just sort of understood if the vehicles are neutral the spline can be spun?

 

From what I was reading the shaft should not have spun like that but without the motor to hold it in place it spun over into neutral and got out of sync with the driveshaft. I actually spent $30 on the just answer website and one of their experts told me exactly how to line it up. I'll try to post the conversation I had with him.

 

Thanks for the help guys

 

https://www.f150forum.com/f38/yet-an...-happy-568001/

I have a picture near the beginning that shows how it should be oriented prior to installing the motor. Neutral is your friend.