4x4 quit

[koch68]

We went camping in the snow and pulled up to the road and dropped it into 4 low and it went about five feet made a pop and no front wheel spinning. Now same for 4 high nothing. The front drive line spins and the axle shafts spin but not the tires. Is it the hubs ? it's later model disc brake open knuckle. I'm stumped. I think it the hubs. I haven't torn into it yet though please help same truck as the signature. Thanks

[67ford]

I'd guess hub, or ujoint and/or shafts. If the ujoints look good then hub seems like a good guess. Axle shafts on both sides spin under throttle or you can see them turning while you're rolling with the hubs locked? It's probably one side or the other and i'd expect only the shafts on the side with the broken hub to spin under throttle with the tires on the ground. If shafts on both sides are turning when you're rolling, then it might be a broken shaft where you can't see it. Those are my guesses anyway.

[koch68]

Its either one side of the other for the shafts spinning. And its under throttle haven't tested it rolling. So if I pull my hubs off and what do I look for if they are bad?

[koch68]

They are warn premium hubs and are pretty old.

[67ford]

If the axle shafts are only spinning on one side then i'd look at the hub on that side. If the hub is broken it will probably be pretty obvious what's wrong with it when you pull the cap off. Does the dial still feel like it's turning normally? It's pretty common for the threads inside the cap to strip out, so look for that. You remove the outer clutch and spring by undoing that little screw. The rest (clutch housing, etc) is held in with a snap ring. They aren't very complicated, you'll be able to see exactly how it works and if there is a broken piece when you take it apart and inspect it. If it's just the dial stripped out and you're stuck somewhere needing 4wd you can put it back together with the spring in front of the outer clutch instead of behind it and make it lock.

[koch68]

I have pulled them out before and had different ones they were mile markers I swapped because I though warn was better. They spin really hard when locking and unlocking.

[BigBlueF250]

Hubs

[koch68]

thanks for the advice so i pulled the drivers hub off and it wasnt engageing so i inspected it and the springs on the back of the hub wasnt pushing that inner gear in all the way so i bent them out a little and it works great but still think its time for new ones. oh and the popping was the hub popping out.