Not sure if this is the right spot. Sorry if it's not. Yesterday, me and my kid went up a hill, to my mom's. It's close to a mile uphill, and we went up in 2WD, as usual. When I got to the top, I stopped to put the Tahoe in 4LO, 1st gear, like always, to keep from having to ride the brakes because I had to go downhill a ways (maybe a 10th of a mile), to get to mom's. I noticed though, that all the lights were out on the selector switch. And of course, trying to push them did nothing. I noticed "Service 4WD" on the DIC. So we went on down the hill in 2WD, in neutral, riding the brakes. I dropped my kid off to do yardwork, turned around, and pulled back out. It took me 4 tries in 2WD to get back up out of there, back to the top of the hill (I kept spinning and getting stuck). I usually do this part in 4LO, but couldn't this time. Anyhow, I parked on top and turned the truck off. It sat there for the next 2 hours while I put out some new road signs to try to keep people off the driveway. I walked around the truck and looked under it for any new leaks.
{*Side note: My ABS box has been leaking for a few weeks (haven't bought one yet; just keep the cylinder filled, and drive slow), but I noticed 3 days ago, it seemed to be leaking a lot more than usual, going by the spot that would accumulate under the truck. However, it didn't seem to be using any more fluid than usual. We decided to go ahead and order the box though.}
When I walked around the truck looking for new leaks, I noticed my usual ABS leak spot was dry. I looked under there better and it was definitely dry, no drips and leaks like usual when I first park. At this point, I started worrying that maybe the big spot I kept seeing the past few days had been TC fluid instead of brake fluid, and now it was dry of TC fluid.
After a couple hours, I walked back to mom's, got my kid, we walked back to the truck and I started it. The selector switch came on like always, nothing about the 4WD on the DIC. By this point though, I'd done convinced myself that I must've let all the TC fluid leak out and that's what happened to my 4WD earlier. So I put it in drive and gave it some gas to get going, then we hurried down the hill in 2WD in neutral. It took about 3-4 minutes to get all the way off the hill, and at the bottom, I shifted into drive. When it started slowing down, I gave it gas and all it did was rev, like it was in neutral. It's probably not even a 10th of a mile from the bottom of mom's hill to our place, and ever so slightly downhill, so thankfully we were able to coast the rest of the way in neutral. I parked it and turned it off, absolutely convinced by this point that I'd totally killed the transfer case.
Today, I went out and checked the fluid in the TC and it was full. I was astounded! I thought for sure I had done killed it. So me and my ol' man done a bunch of talking, I done a bunch of googling, and finally decided to go out and see what it would do. I started it, everything was normal on the dash. I put it in reverse, felt it kick in, backed up fine. Put it in drive, felt it kick in, gave it gas, everything was just like every other day. Now we don't know what to do. We don't know what happened. Don't know what's going to happen. I'm scared to even take it 3 minutes down the road because I don't know if it's gonna fail me or what. We don't know if we should start looking for another vehicle. If this was some sort of weird glitch or a warning of impending failure. I can't seem to find my exact issue online and really don't even know if it matters. Please help!
{*Side note: My ABS box has been leaking for a few weeks (haven't bought one yet; just keep the cylinder filled, and drive slow), but I noticed 3 days ago, it seemed to be leaking a lot more than usual, going by the spot that would accumulate under the truck. However, it didn't seem to be using any more fluid than usual. We decided to go ahead and order the box though.}
When I walked around the truck looking for new leaks, I noticed my usual ABS leak spot was dry. I looked under there better and it was definitely dry, no drips and leaks like usual when I first park. At this point, I started worrying that maybe the big spot I kept seeing the past few days had been TC fluid instead of brake fluid, and now it was dry of TC fluid.
After a couple hours, I walked back to mom's, got my kid, we walked back to the truck and I started it. The selector switch came on like always, nothing about the 4WD on the DIC. By this point though, I'd done convinced myself that I must've let all the TC fluid leak out and that's what happened to my 4WD earlier. So I put it in drive and gave it some gas to get going, then we hurried down the hill in 2WD in neutral. It took about 3-4 minutes to get all the way off the hill, and at the bottom, I shifted into drive. When it started slowing down, I gave it gas and all it did was rev, like it was in neutral. It's probably not even a 10th of a mile from the bottom of mom's hill to our place, and ever so slightly downhill, so thankfully we were able to coast the rest of the way in neutral. I parked it and turned it off, absolutely convinced by this point that I'd totally killed the transfer case.
Today, I went out and checked the fluid in the TC and it was full. I was astounded! I thought for sure I had done killed it. So me and my ol' man done a bunch of talking, I done a bunch of googling, and finally decided to go out and see what it would do. I started it, everything was normal on the dash. I put it in reverse, felt it kick in, backed up fine. Put it in drive, felt it kick in, gave it gas, everything was just like every other day. Now we don't know what to do. We don't know what happened. Don't know what's going to happen. I'm scared to even take it 3 minutes down the road because I don't know if it's gonna fail me or what. We don't know if we should start looking for another vehicle. If this was some sort of weird glitch or a warning of impending failure. I can't seem to find my exact issue online and really don't even know if it matters. Please help!
