Lynn D. Brown
New member
Dear Clonephoons, (kinda close to Clownphools)
I posted something on this a few months ago and here is a follow up. While I am at fixing my cracked Front Diff. case, I thought I would investigate whether our AWD can be converted to shiftable 4WD. This might be really useful to get some mileage out on the road. I've never been too crazy about my 13-14 MPG around town and 16-17 on the HiWay.
I just picked up a Front Diff and axles @ the J-Yard for $250 (Good/Bad ?) from an '85 S-10 blazer. The Front Diff appears to be identical to ours except GM added a few things on the Pass side to make it shiftable. The diffs R :
1.) The plate that the axle goes thru has an xtra hole in the bottom for the vac shifting cable to go thru.
2.) Inside there is a shifting collar and fork, which connects/disconnects the two axles.
3.) The Pass side (long) axle is different so that it can be disconnected.
I thought that those were the only differences that made the 4WD shiftable. But when I went to the JY again, I noticed that they also have a shiftable Transfer Case. Don't know if, like on the Front Diff, the TC is just like ours w some minor mods, and will bolt into our trucks. They look different in the two manuals - Main and Supplement - in which case our TC would then be SyTy specific. Don't know if the 4WD TC would take our torque output or not. There must be some reason GM made us AWD instead of 4WD.
I see in the Truck Shop manual that there were 2 different shift types - a floor mounted mechanical (probably on older trucks) and a push button electronic type.
I posted something on this a few months ago and here is a follow up. While I am at fixing my cracked Front Diff. case, I thought I would investigate whether our AWD can be converted to shiftable 4WD. This might be really useful to get some mileage out on the road. I've never been too crazy about my 13-14 MPG around town and 16-17 on the HiWay.
I just picked up a Front Diff and axles @ the J-Yard for $250 (Good/Bad ?) from an '85 S-10 blazer. The Front Diff appears to be identical to ours except GM added a few things on the Pass side to make it shiftable. The diffs R :
1.) The plate that the axle goes thru has an xtra hole in the bottom for the vac shifting cable to go thru.
2.) Inside there is a shifting collar and fork, which connects/disconnects the two axles.
3.) The Pass side (long) axle is different so that it can be disconnected.
I thought that those were the only differences that made the 4WD shiftable. But when I went to the JY again, I noticed that they also have a shiftable Transfer Case. Don't know if, like on the Front Diff, the TC is just like ours w some minor mods, and will bolt into our trucks. They look different in the two manuals - Main and Supplement - in which case our TC would then be SyTy specific. Don't know if the 4WD TC would take our torque output or not. There must be some reason GM made us AWD instead of 4WD.
I see in the Truck Shop manual that there were 2 different shift types - a floor mounted mechanical (probably on older trucks) and a push button electronic type.