Ground Location

[Art Karlson]

I require assistance locating the ground for the 4-wd selector switch for my Tahoe

I brought the vehicle in for an oil change. I put on my snow tires. Two days later it snowed and I could not get the selector switch to work. I believe the ground is the issue but don’t know where it is located

 

[Fless]

Tell us a bit more about your truck: year, model, engine, etc. It can matter.

What about the switch "doesn't work?" Do any of the colored mode lights (Auto, 2HI, 4HI, etc.) light up on the switch?

 

[Fless]

For starters you can check and clean the first one this guy shows:

 

[rockola1971]

I require assistance locating the ground for the 4-wd selector switch for my Tahoe

I brought the vehicle in for an oil change. I put on my snow tires. Two days later it snowed and I could not get the selector switch to work. I believe the ground is the issue but don’t know where it is located

What does "could not get to work" mean?
Buttons lit up but just flashed back at you then ultimately went solid on 2WD.
Buttons arent lit up at all.
Buttons work normal but Tcase just isnt going into 4wd.
Showing 4wd lo or even Neutral when you are obviously in 2wd.

 

[Art Karlson]

Tell us a bit more about your truck: year, model, engine, etc. It can matter.

What about the switch "doesn't work?" Do any of the colored mode lights (Auto, 2HI, 4HI, etc.) light up on the switch?

My deepest apologies. As this is a forum for 2000 - 2006 Tahoe I did not explain my Tahoe is a 2001 as I thought is was duplicitous information.
When I stated the switch does not work I meant it does nothing You can push the buttons all you want but nothing happens. I felt "It does not work" was adequately explaining the concept that pushing a button and getting zero response indicates it does not work.
I am well aware of the terrible problems in Chevy with their grounds. Although a well known problem, they have done nothing to fix the issues. With this in mind I took the easy route and replaced the switch with a brand new switch.
Neither the original switch nor the new switch get any response. Therefore I stated it does not work.
So, I asked the forum for the location of the grounds that might affect this system. Hopefully I have adequately answered all the necessary problems related to a Tahoe in the 2000-2006 grouping, the switch does not work and my request related to the ground locations.
Once again, i apologize for not clarifying these items earlier.

 

[Fless]

You can help us help you by being descriptive; we do ask a lot of detailed questions in order to help us understand. Ok, it's a 2001 Tahoe. I assume that you have the 4-button switch with AUTO, 2HI, 4HI, and 4LO buttons. Probably looks like this?



You indicated that the switch gets no responses, but back up for a minute; do any of the colored mode lights (Auto, 2HI, 4HI, etc.) light up on the switch? Each button has an LED to indicate the selected mode. The power and ground feeds for that switch will come from the ATCM (auto transfer case control module).

Also, have all associated fuses been checked? Here's one (#7) that's in the center dash fuse panel:



And fuse #27 in the underhood fusebox controls the encoder motor on the tranny, which may affect how your switch works, or doesn't:

 

[Rocket Man]

LMAO. There’s way more that can be said about a problem other than “it doesn’t work” and there’s many many models of 2000-2006 Tahoe’s, Yukon’s, Escalades etc with about a thousand different options. If you want help, you really should answer questions with zero attitude. People are trying to answer your questions with a quarter of the information needed. If this was any other forum you’d have already been thrown to the wolves. Good job trying to help him fellas.

 

[nick0789]

Not to beat a dead horse, but we need more information and troubleshooting updates on your end to effectively assist. Across the 01-06 years, minor updates and modifications were made that could result in the forum members giving you different advice. For example, if you told us you were overheating and had a bunch of noise coming from the engine bay, you'd probably get advice about clutch fans, e-fans, pulleys, etc. If you specified it was a 2001, you'd have no e-fan input (they swapped to e-fans in 05+). Also, tone does not translate well into text: on our end, all we are seeing is something to the effect of "my computer doesn't work, what's wrong with it?" Literally anything could be wrong with it. Until we got more info from you about your computer, specs, what was happening before it broke, etc. you'd get every theory under the sun.

Anyways,
1) Is the 2 Hi light illuminated on the switch itself, prior to you trying to switch between drives?
2) When you press "4 Hi" do any lights blink at all before just staying in 2 Hi? If it blinks, do you hear any clunking underneath or is it silent?
3) When was the last approximate time you switched into 4WD and it worked?
4) Have you checked the fuses, as noted by Fless?
5) Is the vehicle actually on when you try to make the switch, or is there no key in the ignition? (sorry I couldn't help myself, but you get the idea of why as much info as possible helps us as much as it helps you)

If it were my vehicle, I would check the fuses first, then the ground before proceeding with anything else. With that information in hand, that will steer us in the direction of the actual issue.