Hey all. This one is gonna sound stupid, but here goes....

Just the other day, I realized that I had been driving my truck around for God knows how long with it in 4L. Albeit, there never was a light that came on on my dash that indicated that the truck was in either 4H or 4L at all. At any rate, I set it back to 2H and made sure that it would actually switch into 4H and 4L as normal. Well, it did, and all the lights lit up on the dash that were supposed to.

My question is, I drove my truck for 4 or 5 days before I realized what was going on. It didn't make any grinding noises or anthing of the such.....no peculiar smells either. Do you guys think it will be o.k., or could I have possibly damaged something?

Thanks.....

 

with the truck in 4 lo you must have felt some awful lurching on corners. as you probably know,4 wheel drive is not ment for pavement,there has to be some slippage between the tires and ground. it doesn't sound like any damage was done, but i would keep an eye on the u-joints as they would take a tremendous amount of stress turning a corner in 4x4. also in 4 lo you must have been revving pretty high. i presume you don't have a tach? just my thoughts.

 

Without the lights coming on or you noticing anything maybe it never engaged.

 

At some point, you or somebody else probably bumped the switch. You most likely didn't drive very far. My 2yr old son moved my switch a few weeks ago and there is a tremendous difference on how my truck performed when it was in 4low. I only went a block. I thought there was something messed up in the drivetrain. It was a big relief once I figured out the problem.

 

do you have the manual shift transfer case or the rotary switch? my wife's expedition has the rotary one and if you turn it to 4 lo without putting the transmission in neutral first, i don't think 4 lo will engage.

 

It's the automatic shift transfer case with the little rotary switch on the dash. I never noticed any lurching in corners or difference in how it ran, so maybe it just got bumped accidently, or never engaged at all.

 

I doubt it engaged at all.

You would be able to tell the difference quickly on pavement and if you were in 4X4 low you would be going 15 MPH so you would definetely notice that one also.

 

Truth is....if it actually got switched when I think it did.....I drove it about 4 days and noticed nothing different at all.

Then again, my wife was painting her toenails in it the day I noticed it while it was parked, so that's probably when it actually happened....LOL!!!

 

glad there was no visible gamage, good luck.

 

that should have been DAMAGE