What does the button do?

[sirhk100]

Okay, this is lame, and I can't believe I'm asking it but. What does the 4x4 button do on my 92' Explorer. I've never owned a push button 4x4 before and I've only had this one for 3 weeks. I own a heavily modified jeep and to put it in 4wd I have to get out, lock the hubs, and then actually grab the xfer case shifters and select what range I want. 2wh, 2wl, 4wh, 4wl. This push button stuff is a little upperclass for me. What does the button engage? The Hubs? the xfer case? Both? Is the front driveshaft spinning while in 2wd? I'm asking cause I think I need to replace the hubs. The front driver side hub pops occasionally when under torque in 4wh and 4wl. I'm going to replace the auto hubs with manuals. Explorers are shift on the fly unlike my CJ, right? Will that still be true with the manual hub? I mean, if I get to the trail head and lock the hubs is it engaged or do I still have to push the button? I'm thinking about all of this cause really I'm wondering that if the auto hubs don't truely unlock and the front driveshaft is spinning in 2wd what happens when I put manual hubs on and they are unlocked? the drive shaft isn't spinning then and if I push the button does something go POP?

 

[Henry]

The button engages the transfer case only. With the auto hubs, once the t-case is engaged then the hubs also lock in. After you upgrade to manual hubs you would first lock the hubs, then you can just press the button to change between 2wd and 4wd modes. The t-case is a shift-on-the-fly type; however, if the hubs were not locked then pressing the button will engage the front drive train, but you still wouldn't be in 4wd.

The auto hubs unlock by changing directions after the t-case is in 2wd mode so normally the front drive train is not running. This means that when the t-case is put in 4wd when you're driving that the drive train is run up to speed and then the hubs lock in. This would still happen with manual hubs except that the hubs would not automatically lock. I don't know if anything bad would happen with running like that.

 

[sirhk100]

Okay, that answers my question. I wasn't sure if with the mnual hubs unlocked it would cause the front drive shaft to stop spinning and then when youpushed the button it would try to slam the front drive shaft into gear from a dead stop. That sounds like it would be bad but if it spins everything up with syncros or something then that makes sense.
thanks