Ask The Editors: When Your Hubs Won’t Engage
Where to begin when your hubs aren’t playing nice.
The fact that neither hub is engaging and the all wheel drive switch and light aren’t working either has us thinking same.
The most common culprit (and easiest fix) is to get up inside and check your wires. Use a flashlight and follow them carefully, checking for breaks, kinks and even just exposed metal. We had a Scrambler many years ago with a single hub that refused to engage no matter what we tried and it turned out to be a wire near the strut that had worn down rubber, allowing a direct short. A little electrical tape and the problem never returned.
Depending on your comfort with an electrical multimeter, the most sure-fire way to check each wire is to put your meter on continuity (or resistance) mode and place one probe at the start of a wire and the other at its termination point. If your meter doesn’t move – you found the faulty length.
While you have your meter out, check the magnetic coils on each hub – they should read ~25 ohms, contain no shorts, or open circuits. Be certain voltage is reaching both hubs.
If all of these things check out, then it’s likely the switch itself. Keeping your meter in the resistance setting, place a probe on each side of the switch and activate it – you should get continuity with the switch in one position but never both. If you’re getting continuity in both positions (or none in either), replacing the switch should get you back in shape.
You must be logged in to post a comment.