Rally_T-115:

I was able to get a sidekick diff with my original ratio (4.625:1) so I didn't need to swap ring and pinions.  You would need the inner shaft from a '96-'98 sidekick, passenger side cv/axle (to make a hybrid one), and the diff assembly of course - all from a '96-'98 sidekick.  However, I didn't use the inner shaft and I was able to grind my current one a bit which seems to be working well - but I wouldn't normally recomend this.

Your case is a little different due to your gear ratio.  It wasn't available on the older sidekicks.  I think you should take a day and pull your current diff and see if you can engineer some way to lock it into 4wd.  You could have your current ring and pinion swapped to the sidekick one, but now we are talking more time and money.  If you can figure out how to use your current diff you can add locking hubs and be done with it.

Yeah that sounds like the best plan.  Alrighty, off to go find some manual locking hubs!

Oh and photobucket finally decided to accept my uploads, got one pic up of me with the GV before heading out to the road rally.  Head over here http://www.zukiworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=21023.0

James

I have the same problem.  The 4wd flashes intermitently, but seems to work.  Some times just after engaging there is a clunk sound/feel from the front.  Has anyone tried replacing the actuator??

In the Front Differential section of the service manual available on http://myvitara.co.uk/ mentions 4wd switching error could be a defective actuator.

I like the SOTF, it has been really helpfull this winter.

Thanks to 01v for posting where to find the sevice manual.

I didn't try replacing the actuator/pump - but it is about $400 from the dealer which is the same cost as converting the front diff to the non-air version.  You don't necessarily loose your shift on the fly capability with the conversion.  If the hubs are locked you can shift in and out of 4WD on the move just like before - in fact it goes in even smoother.

New aftermarket air pumps are on ebay now for $199.  Lotta dough to keep a weak link.

I just installed my Warn premium hubs.  So that step is done!     Almost accidentially way overtorqued the tiny little capscrews to 144 in/lbs but then as I was tightening it I was like "this can't be right" so I checked the instructions again and the max was supposed to be 50 in/lbs.  That was close.  Anyways I went over all the bolts with the torquewrench 3x, with a dab of Loktite on each one.  The 10mm hub bolts (with the washer and splitwasher) are 25 ft/lbs.

So now the next step is pulling the front diff out and seeing if I can force it to be engaged 100% of the time.  Remember I've no intention of changing gearing or installing a locker, all I want to do is delete the SOTF.

Two weekends ago we went for a drive up north near Wakefield QC, then we crossed the river and looked for really twisty backroads home.  There was this one road that was really slushy/icy/muddy with lots of soft gravel and tons of potholes.  Put it in 4WD and the 4WD light stayed on solid!  We were suprised but it stayed on for a good 5 minutes or so before it started blinking again, and it was blinking like a turn signal before the light went out and I lost 4WD.  (Back to the way it was acting).  Had to put it in 2WD and then back to 4WD and the light was flashing again and it gave up again after another minute.

Anyway, WEDNESDAY is the day I'll be staying after work to pull the diff out and see what I can do.  I really hope it's a simple as prying a metal plate over and engaging it into a slot, and then tack welding it into place in 4 or 5 spots around the plate.

James
PS: It makes perfect sense that it would engage even easier, Frank84.  If the hubs are locked in then that means the front driveline is already spun up to meshing speed so it should pop in real slick.  With the stock SOTF, imagine you're driving at 70km/h or more and want to engage 4x4 - that front driveshaft and big ring gear now has to be all spun up to speed really quick by that synchronizer ring in the transfer case.  Ouch!  No wonder I have to reef on that shifter sometimes.

OK, I'm back, after phase-2 of my "simple Axle-Disconnect-delete conversion".

Phase one was putting in manual hubs

Phase two - here.

Phase three - whatever else I still have to do   

So the goal was to pull the front diff out and see if there is a way it can be welded or otherwise set to be "engaged" full time.

Take note I've never done this before so I was learning how it all comes apart as I go.  So, I knew about the driver's side driveshaft, that was easy. 

Then that bitch passenger side.  Somewhere I read that it is apparently easier to unbolt the strut instead of the balljoint.  Well I prepped beforehand by undoing all the abs wire mounts and brake hose and removing the caliper.  Left the disc on and the hub as well, disconnected the swaybar link and tierod.   I put a jackstand under the control arm and lowered the car down onto it (yes I'm using a hoist ).  Bottom strut bolt snapped.  Had to heat the knuckle a bit and then pound it out with the air hammer.  Anyway, once the knuckle/brake disc was flopping around on the ball joint, raised the car and then started levering the control arm way far down to get the driveshaft out of the diff!!  Holy crap I had to go far, it's near impossible to do that without screwing up the seal!!  The inner joint doesnt bend far enough.  I didn't want to pull the driveshaft out of the knuckle as I had just installed the hubs two days before and I didn't want to take them apart already.  I think next time I'll pull the disc off as well.  All that stuff was really heavy when you're trying to wrestle that around and wrestle the spring back into position and carefully guide the driveshaft back into the diff and fight with the swaybar.  (I didn't know the control arm had to drop down that far.)

Next was pulling the actual diff out.  I was about to start taking the catalyst/crossover pipe out make the first turn when my co-worker said "the third member comes out a lot easier when you take the whole case out of the car.  Look, just undo this big bolt here, this one here, and these two here".  HOLY Jeez, now he tells me, just in time.  I've been here on zukiworld this long and never knew it came out like that??  What's wrong with this site?  I thought the front 3rd member had to come out, just like the rear 3rd member does - the pumpkin/case stays in the car.

Fast forward some and we now have the diff out of the case and on the bench.  I "activate" the actuator gently with shop air, and I can see how the plate moves over.  Considered welding but figured the slag would not be good, even from tiny tack welds.  We saw that a nice "valley" about 1/8" wide opened up when the diff was pressurized.  So then we tried to think of something to hold it over with no air.  Like Frank84 said, that wave spring is very light.  We need a snap ring or something.  Then we noticed that this "valley" doesn't spin with the ring gear.  Eventually we came up with:

Zip ties.  Two long zip ties, 3/16" wide, about 1' long.  I held the diff "activated" with air pressure and wrapped the zip tie around the actuator in the "valley".  Then I moved the "head" of the zip tie until it pointed down, cut off the excess, then put in another zip tie directly over the first one but with the head on top, so they're opposite each other on the actuator.    I released the air pressure, and the diff stayed engaged!!  The "heads" are only very lighty rubbing on a part that spins with the diff, but mostly the wraps themselves are holding the actuator engaged.  Another good thing is that the wraps are 100% plastic, not even a metal bit in the head.  That way if they fail while I'm screaming down the road it won't grind up gear teeth.  I think this'll do the trick!

But first I have to do phase 3:

First off, has anyone here heard of Suzuki TSB # TS 06 05227?  Apparently there is a part called a "drive shaft support" P/N 27619-65D00.  It looks like a nylon bushing or donut (they call it "the new additional support ring") that is installed before the right hand seal.    In anycase I ordered that too with the seal but it's going to be 2 weeks for it to get here. (!?)     I ended up destroying the old seal pulling the driveshaft out, so right now I'm driving around with no oil in the front diff and the hubs unlocked.  At the same time, I noticed my right front shock is pretty much dead.  I could compress it all the way and pull it down fairly easily, even though it's not leaking.     Got to find replacements.  Hmmm, something that can take a pounding...

Anyway, once I get that axle support ring and new seal I can fill the diff and try out my simple-Axle-Disconnect-delete and see how it goes.  Hopefully it'll stand up to 100+km/h (or thereabouts).  Hopefully also there won't be any weird vibrations or anything with the hubs locked in 2WD.

So now I wait... In the meantime, my brother's poor Lincoln was broken by a huge sinkhole.

James

Looks like you've been strugling a bit there!

The easy way to remove the diff is to just remove the front axle housing and pull the shafts out as it lowers - no need to monkey with the struts or controls arms.  Then slide the shafts in as you raise the axle up - two people is a must in my opinion.  Even doing it this way I still had my own sets of problems with rusted bolts so don't feel alone there.

Once you get it back together make sure to give us updates on how it works!

good old front ends on these things..... new air actuator pump to be installed in mine tomorrow morning...   

Oh you found the problem Bzzr2?  At least it was the pump.

I'm still waiting for parts to come in from 417 Suzuki -- a new seal and the "drive shaft support" bushing thing that goes in behind that seal.  Once I get those, well I might as well replace my dead front struts as well.  The dealer told me it would be two weeks -- that bushing is coming in from the states --  so hopefully I should at least have the parts by the end of this week or beginning of next.  In the meantime I'm driving around with no oil in the front diff so I'm really really paranoid about always checking the hubs before I get in the car, in case some kid turned it around to 4x4.

Frank84  That sounds like a great idea I'll do that next time I need to pull the front diff out of the truck.  Like I said I had no idea the whole thing just came out simple like that.  It looked like such a bitch before.  What about that rear mount though, do you just undo the two bolts or do you unbolt the mount from the frame too?

In any case, tomorrow morning I'm writing my 310S exam to become  a Licensed Mechanic so wish me luck, by the time you read this I might be writing or have written it already.  I find out how well I did in two weeks.

James

Good luck with the exam James!

As for the rear mount on the case - I honestly can't remember!  Someone else might know.  I do remember I had a small issue with one of the bolts being stuck in it that I had to hammer out so I must have left it attached to the case, pulled the case out, then removed the mount.  It might be easier to unbolt the mount from the frame AND from the diff before removing the case.  That would give you the most freedom.

air pump replaced, no more flashing light.  wonder how long it will last this time..

BY JOVE, I THINK WE'VE GOT IT!!!!
 

Ok first off, anyone here who has grabbed and wiggled the right inner c/v joint where it goes into the differential and noticed how sloppy it is, get this bushing (Suzuki P/N 27619-65D00) and put it in before installing a new seal.  It took all the slop away from that inner joint.  I am very happy I got it.

So I installed that and the new seal(P/N superseded yet again lol),   put the truck back together and finally filled the front diff, tipped back to get a little more than 1L in.  Pinched off the air hose so the 4WD light will come on.  Ran it on the hoist in the air and the "fix" seems to work perfectly!  Put it down and took it for a test drive with the hubs locked, and it drove very well, and there doesn't appear to be any extra NVH running at almost-highway speeds in 2H (hubs locked).

A really nice thing is with hubs locked, shifting at speed from 2H to 4H is way way easier now, I can't describe it, but it just goes in so slick now since the front driveline is already spun-up to mesh speed.  Before, I really had to reef on the transfer lever to engage 4H.

I drove it home with the hubs locked (2H of course) and I didn't feel any problems at all.  Even had a little "test" for it, it rained a little earlier and the roads were still wet.  I came up to a red traffic light and the right lane was open, so I put it in 4H before stopping, and when the light turned green I poured on the coal, not really floored but oh yeah it pulled with no wheelspin, oh yes, my 4x4 works!

So everthing looks good so far, we'll see how things go...  Too bad all the freakin' snow is gone now, I've got no way to really test this the way I want to!!

James
PS:  I passed my auto tech exam with flying colours.

BY JOVE, I THINK WE'VE GOT IT!!!!
...A really nice thing is with hubs locked, shifting at speed from 2H to 4H is way way easier now, I can't describe it, but it just goes in so slick now since the front driveline is already spun-up to mesh speed.  Before, I really had to reef on the transfer lever to engage 4H.

Mine is like that too.  Feels like you need to bend the shifter before it will move.  The strange thing is that, once you have put it into 4H, you can shift between 2H and 4H without any effort, even if you've been in 2H for some minutes, which should have given time for the front shaft and diff to stop spinning.  Stop, and try again a couple of hours later, and it's back to maximum effort for the first shift.

Yeah it's weird, it's not like that all the time for mine, sometimes it was not so bad, other times it's really stiff.

Anyway, on sunday I went out with the local 4x4 club on an apparently "stock friendly" trail.  I guess what they meant was Jeep Wrangler stock.  But I didn't know.  I was asking around and they were like "yeah you'd have no problem."  Uh-huh.  It was my first time going out on a trail like that.

Well the 4WD worked flawlessly!   The zip-ties are definitely doing the trick.  There was quite a few messy muddy sections on the trail but I made it through pretty much all of it, except this one spot where I was stuck down in these muddy ruts and the left side rut had this rock in it creating a sheer vertical 1 foot "step-up".  I am still running half-worn Goodyear Integritys so I had no way of climbing out of the ruts to get up over this rock.  There were other rocks hidden in the mud too which were carving up my trans crossmember when I was trying to maneuver a way up.  I ended up needing a gentle pull to get up over that rock.  So other than that, I had no problems.  No problems in the mud or water crossings, (keep it moving, don't touch the clutch when in the water).

Lotsa Heeps, Pathies, and 4Runners in all manner of build, two FJ Cruisers, an XL-7 (2003, with auto) and my GV.  The Two FJs and the two Zuks were running very stock looking tires with mine being the worst.

Most memorable moment - Heard over the CB radio just after I finished truckin' through a long section of thick rutted mud: "That little Suzuki with the street tires made it!" 

Oh yeah.   

James