Extra wire from transfer case

[lil_Blue_Ford]

The transfer case is the one that came in the truck back in Jan of 1998 when I bought it with 14 miles on it. Now at 368K, it's been falling apart. LOL
I use to live further out of town on a gravel road that was very steep, so I was always shifting from 2 to 4 high so as to minimize potholes in the gravel. Never had problems then, but that was back in the 2010s. Now I hardly think to put it in 4 wheel drive.
Couldn't tell in the video, do you remember if your connector was 'full' of all 8 wires? Thinking now that I need to look at the new plug on the motor and see if all 8 wires are 'filled in'. If so, I'll try splicing the 'extra wire' in the new motor's plug into the one from the transfer case. Sound logical?

Interesting.

Yes, the 2000 transfer cases that I had which didn’t have the extra wire from the t-case only had 7 wires in the plug and a blank spot. Dad’s 99 had the extra wire and it filled that last spot. Which is why I asked if your truck had 7 or 8 wires on the truck side, if it had 8, then that’s likely where the missing wire goes. If it has 7, then adding a wire to the plug won’t change a thing because there’s nowhere on the truck side to connect. If that makes sense.

But the wire colors on the new motor don't match the original, as far as positions go. And the original plug on mine only had 7 wires installed. So there was one 'blank' in the plug, and the extra wire was the 8th. Was thinking maybe they integrated it into the plug on other years, since your description of the wires don't match my plug. What do you think?

The wire colors changed randomly on the shift motor side. Depended on who made it and when. They can be traced out but should come pre-assembled into the correct position.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Only if it's the same color. Some plugs had more than 8 wires. I would suspect that if it's an 8-wire plug, you will not find anything extra.

2 wires for motor
2 wires for sensor
4 wires for position switches
= 8 wires. There won't be any unused.

On the 99 and the 00 Rangers I’ve worked with there is two heavy gauge wires for the shift motor and 5 for the contact plate. The 99 was the only one with an 8th wire, and that went into the t-case under the rear output. All three were pinned exactly the same other than that 8th wire.

 

[Effieman]

Interesting.

Yes, the 2000 transfer cases that I had which didn’t have the extra wire from the t-case only had 7 wires in the plug and a blank spot. Dad’s 99 had the extra wire and it filled that last spot. Which is why I asked if your truck had 7 or 8 wires on the truck side, if it had 8, then that’s likely where the missing wire goes. If it has 7, then adding a wire to the plug won’t change a thing because there’s nowhere on the truck side to connect. If that makes sense.


The wire colors changed randomly on the shift motor side. Depended on who made it and when. They can be traced out but should come pre-assembled into the correct position.

The extra wire on my case connected to a separate wire that also came out of the motor, so there was a total of 8 wires connected, 7 in the connector, and one with the spade connector. I'm figuring IF the new motor has 8 wires in the connector, then the 8th wire would be for the extra wire that comes from the case, which would seem to be what you explained. Does that make sense?