ukrkoz

i must do a quicky for now, so here's my suggestion: pull the switch out, it's 5 min job; it is said to be easily disassembled; take switch apart and when you get to the pushbutton contacts, clean them with pencil erasor. got to run to work, will let you know qrts later today.
reason i asked about tires was that if truck sits do **** for so long, everything oxydizes badly, all contacts, rubber, oils, etc. clean the contacts. my switch when it dies on me had same symptoms - come up in about 20 mins of driving. i, actually, drove for several weeks with toothpick jammed between the buttons, that kept service light from coming up. wiggle the button, see what happens.

ukrkoz

ok, manual does not say how many qrts. period. dealership will tell you how many while you here. something tells me 4, but i'm most likely wrong. you'll need handpump to do change, no way to pour it in.

called dealership, i was wrong. it's 2 qrts, at about 5 bucks each. hand pump a must though. schucks has them for some $15 plus tax, very handy. wait until you try to do ATF change on that truck.....

JapanAaron

ukrkoz, .... you rock! Thanks for going through the trouble of calling the dealership. I am sure that I can get 2 qts. of the AUTOTRACK 11 TRANSFER CASE FLUID, but will have to take a Japanese friend with me to do some translating. I have the hand pump from doing diff oil changesin numerous classics over the years. I willtake your recommendation andcheck the switch assembly this weekend and attempt to clean the contacts.The only time I getthe"service 4wd" warning is after 20 minutes or more of driving.Local tripsit doesn't come on.Thanks again and I will post results after I have accomplished everything. What's wrong with the ATF change? Do you have to do something crazy to complete the change? Please tell...

ukrkoz

well my switch did exactly the same - drive for about 20 min, then light will come up. similar...

anyways, ATF. ok, maybe yours different, some of them had torx hole in the drain plug. mine is manufactured december 99, so it's 2000 model, and it has drain plug that is a very shallow, with recess in the middle, nut. sort of crowned one. per owner, he never changed ATF in it, and i bought it from him at 57K miles. so , i got my hands on it right on. that plug appears to be welded into the oil pan. neither sockets, nor air tool managed to loosen it. yet, due to the depression in the middle, it stripped almost in no time.
silly me decided to take the whole pan off, and get that plug out drilled in the vise or something.
so, like a g'ol redneck, got my truck on the ramps, undid all the bolts, tilted pan towards one side to drain ATF, got it all over undercarrige and self, just to find that shifter cable bracket on the driver side of the pan is hook shaped and will not let that pan go, unless removed. now, the way GM ingenuity atatched it was with 2 torx bolts, ON TOP of the bracket, totally hidden by transmission flange. now i know, thanks to good forum folk, that it's T35 torx, but either way there's no way to get to the heads.
so, i simply slapped that pan back on and tightened bolts back. about a month ago, i found that you can bend that bracket away to free the pan edge. dealership charges $470 plus tax for "fluid and filter" job. so, i am syphoning ATF via dipstick tube ever since last year, one qrt at a time every other month, just to keep it clean. also, be advised, that if you do pull the pan off, at the rear of trannie are 2 solenoid wet contacts that can easily slip off when pan is reinstalled, positively desabling trannie later on.

JapanAaron

ukrkoz, wow... ok, so I guess if I have to do a tranny fluid swap I'll invest in one of the syphons that go in through the dipstick tube. Sounds as if the GM engineers designed the trannyfor GM service dept. mechanics only.Nothing like job security. Thanks for the insight into whata pain in the a** the fluid change is.I was just driving my truck at lunch (approximately 20 minutes) of coursethe"service 4wd" came onas scheduled as soon as the truck warmed up. I will definitely check the switch this weekend and hopefully be able to report back with a successful deletion of the service 4wd light.

ukrkoz

JA, it does not mean that your drain plug will be same way. some others had none of this troble, some - did. either way, changing filter in trannie - be prepaired to hassle with that bracket. suggestion is - get a stripped nut removing socket before you even touch that drain plug with any other tool. if you worked on old cars before, you most likely have one of those. i believe it's 15mm head. i even bought a GripTite set for this purpose from sears, just don't want to mess with it as of now, syphoning works fine.
btw, trannie really likes royal purple atf. but i am not suggesting, as it's expensive and probably to no avail in japan anyway.

good luck on the switch.

Josi

Indicator liters come on when turnin vehicle on but dnt stay on but my 4/4 services lite comes on wat does this mea