Replacing ADD actuator

Hello!

after doing a lot of research and reading posts related to this on this forum I am fairly confident I either need to replace the front diff actuator or at least take a look inside to make sure the contacts are still in place/solder them as I’ve seen others do and look for rust and corrosion. I live on a floodplain in British Columbia near Abbotsford where there were catastrophic floods this winter. I was forced to drive through fairly deep water on my roads that for sure would’ve had water spray high enough to get into the breather hose and flood the inside.
I was able to check the contacts on the electrical harness and they looked clean and corrosion free, and the breather hose was attached firmly. I removed the three bolts but I was not able to get the housing/part off of the truck! I gently tapped it with a hammer to try to release the seal and still couldn’t get it off. I am a girl with small hands but I am not weak lol. I am going to buy a rubber mallet but does anyone have any tips on releasing this off properly without damaging it?

Any other tips would be greatly appreciated as well for the replacement or cleaning. I do have the proper penetra red gasket seal, dielectric grease and

$29 75W-90 Synthetic Gear Lube - 1 Quart (Pack of 2)

75W-90 gear oil already. And I’ve watched pretty much all of the YouTube videos posted here!


Thanks!

 

Good video here (if you haven't already seen it):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCY2BCdlU4I

 

@ShimStack

 

ADD and Transfer Case are not the same thing.

 

Thought it was 4 bolts. you sure they are all out?

 

Thank you I have seen this one. Mine wouldn’t come off.

 

Should be 4 bolts and it'll come right out.

 

All of the videos and forums I’ve seen say 3 bolts ‍♀️ I’ll look again I guess

 

Did you remove the bottom cover and components? His seemed to be locked in place until he took that apart.
I've never had to remove mine, knock on wood, so I'm not qualified to say that it's totally necessary.

 

Jesus Christ there is 4! The video quoted in this thread the guy only took off 3! I haven’t gotten the replacement part yet but I looked it closer online and it has 4 as well. The other bolt is nearly impossible to access though. I’ll try to take off the plate first and see if that helps. I had to buy a pivot head ratchet driver to access these

 

any tips on how to access the far left bolt? I can get the socket on it but it’s really hard to get enough area for leverage.

 

Nothing specific, because last time I took it out the whole diff was sitting on my bench.

 

Box end wrench to break it loose than open end to work it out, its a pain but can be done.

 

knowing how much water I went through with a flooding situation down here I was fairly convinced it was going to need replacing so I ordered a new actuator assembly for $300 Canadian and was able to replace it today by myself! That fourth bolt was a hard one but I got it. It was definitely rusted and corroded inside the old one.

** One thing I want to add that I couldn’t find any other posts or videos is that a lot of differential fluid drains out and needs replacing! Not just a little in mine anyway.
I had over 600ml drain out. I have never replaced that before so I didn’t have a #10 hex socket or the oil pump to fill it back up. I borrowed the hex and used an unused gasoline syphon to pump new fluid back in after.**

After! No more blinking lights or warning. Engages and disengages perfectly!

 

If she was in deep water without a breather mod its a good idea to change the diff fluids anyway. I've never seen a gas siphon used before how well did it work? The hand soap style of fluid pump is terrible to use, when I do fluids I use a performance tool multi use pump from advanced auto.

 

It wasn’t that deep but it was an entire road for a few days and I had rooster tails as high as my passenger windows. I otherwise don’t go through water. This was an emergency. ☹️
The fluid was pretty dark so I agree. The cheap gas siphon worked perfectly! Stuck the stiffer end into the bottle and the accordion end into the reservoir as far as I could and it only dropped back out when full. Desperate times call for creativity lol!

 

You say you had a lot of fluid drain out. Please consider that might have been because of the added water. Did you do a complete drain and refill too, if not I recommend it as there maybe that extra 600ml of water left in there. Just saying.

I have no experience with just an ADD replacement, but I have drained the front diff twice and will do it again in several weeks. The whole drain is not much more than 1.5 qts total.

 

I can’t say for sure but it was very dark and old looking fluid. Not diluted with water? I would’ve drained and refilled it all if I was expecting to but I only bought one 900ml bottle, so I couldn’t drain and replace it all. I just hit 200,000km!! (125,000 miles) On my 2016!! So I need to do my 200,000km service really soon. They can drain and replace ha ha

also: I guess that could be possible, but I think unlikely. The breather tube is small and I don’t think it would be likely/easy to fill the diff with 600ml of water. It would have to go in an upward flow into the main reservoir/holding tank. I can’t see that happening!

 

Well done! Congrats on the successful repair. Sorry to hear about you getting stuck in those horrible floods in Abby. I was fortunately near Van out of harms way during all those crazy atmospheric rivers. Hopefully they don't happen again any time soon!

 

Thanks! I thought it was fun ploughing through the flooded roads to be honest! But if you look at my other thread, it also F’d up my BSM system by flooding the wires and causing mayhem in my wiring system. My heating and defroster system went out in the middle of my crazy cold winter. Thanks to this site I narrowed it down and fixed it myself after many hours of frustration, scary dangerous drives home at 2am and some tears (ima
Girl still lol). Doesn’t surprise me that it f’d up this system too. Makes sense