I've got probably 150 miles on the new switch and several instance of going in and out of 4WD/Autotrac with immediate response from the switch and no sign of the service light - of course I had gone 600 or miles via the scare technique so we'll see.
Jim - Thanks a lot for the pictures and step by step instructions. The video is neat! How did you do that? I'm going to keep waiting to see what happens with yours now before I spend any money. My light has not come on in over 600 miles. I talked to 2 people who bought 1999 Silverado trucks new and both of them said their light has come on. One guy said it only happened a couple times a couple years ago and he never did anything and it just quit doing it. The other guy said he took his in and the dealer couldn't find anything wrong. He said the light still comes on once in a while, but hasn't come on in about a year.
The video was doing using my old Sony Mavica Digital Camera. I bought it in '97 or '98. I liked at the time because most others were serial port connections (USB hadn't really taken off yet) and this one was floppy. Those memory cards at the time were small and expensive. This allowed me just to keep using the old floppy disk and if I went vacation and "filled" my camera I could just go by another pack of disk. Has been a great little camera. Starting to show its age a little bit in quality of pics, but still works great. I think I can get about 63 seconds of video on a single 1.44 MB floppy disk. Unfortunately when I took this video I had already snapped several photos and only had about 400k left so that is why it is only 14 seconds.
That's good to hear. I've also put a couple more hundred miles on mine and haven't had a problem. I had a problem with the radio in my other pickup and after a year or so that problem just went away, so the "do nothing" method does work sometimes!
After about 1200 miles of no "Service 4WD" light, it came on yesterday. I think my pickup just hates big cities as much as I do. The first time it came on was in Nashville, TN and yesterday was in Indianapolis, IN. Seriously, I'm wondering if city type stop and go driving has anything to do with it? It's never come on while driving on the highway.
Mine varied. Never did have a rhyme or reason as to why. I've probably got 1500 on mine now and not a sign of of the service light. Do have a couple of other things going on. The truck developed a squeak in the rear. First instinct was brakes. But then decided no it was u-joints. Purchased both. Started to pull the drive shaft. Pulled the cover off the u-joint. They are tight. Dad and a couple of others don't think they are it. I put the caps back on and go ahead and put the brake pads on - BTW, easiest brakes I ever put on. Didn't stop the squeak - at least initially. Since (I just did it Thursday) I've developed a load clicking sound under acceleration. I've also notice the back of the truck bouncing when leaving a light. Now I think I'm going to go ahead and replace the u-joints.
At 70k the rear pads were still in pretty good shape. Could have easily gone farther, I was just trying to eliminate the squeak.
Jim, you say the u-joints are tight and I certainly can't say where your squeak is coming from, but . . . my brothers used to own a tire dealership/garage and they had a customer who was referred to them by another garage because he had a slight vibration in his pickup truck. He had already been to the dealer, and another independent garage, had the brakes, tire balance, and u-joints checked, etc. and still had the problem. My brother diagnosed the problem as u-joints that were too tight and told him the u-joints needed replacing. The guy was skeptical, and reluctant to spend more money, afraid that wouldn't fix it, so my brother told him what it would cost to replace the u-joints and that if that didn't correct the problem, he'd have new u-joints and not owe a penny. They put the u-joints in, let him drive it, he paid for it and was happy to do so. [img]/forums/images/icons/cool.gif[/img]
I think agree with you Bird (of course I usually do). Don't know about being too tight or not, but I do know that when I took the caps off, we hit the driveshaft end a couple of times and the driveshaft (aluminum) didn't want to move so maybe we are on to something. I've already purchased them (thinking they were loose), so money isn't the issue. I hate to just "throw" parts at something, but there isn't too many things back there that can make noise. I'm only out about $25 if I put the 2 joints in and it doesn't solve the problem - I would still have the old ones to put back in if ever the need should arise, but I would also eliminate one more possibility. I've thought about taking the rear drive shaft out and put the truck in 4WD and drive it for a couple of miles that way to see what happens. We did that once w/ Dad's old Chevy to diagnose from driveshaft u-joints or front axle u-joints. Turned out it was the axle.
Jim
BTW, Bird nice looking home you are looking at. Good luck w/ it. Hope it goes well for you.
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