Tranfer case difference...wires?

[ParadiseMJ]

I have a two wire connector on my t-case and the (what I think to be) the corresponding pigtail coming off the AW4 transmission.  This is a 92-94 tranny and t-case.  Plugged in or not plugged in doesn't seem to do a thing.  The rest of the truck is Renix.  can anyone tell me where the wires end, does it go through the trans harness? 

[gogmorgo]

I'd have to get underneath and crawl around to remember where all the connectors go, but when I swapped the '93 4.0/aw4/242 into my '91, I had to go through all this stuff.

But what I do remember is that there were two connectors at the dipstick tube. One was for the trans itself, and I want to say the other was for both the tcase and speedometer wires.

But on the CAD-equipped '91, the wires for the shifter light split off from the harness somewhere in there and follow the vacuum lines to the CAD. The shifter light works on a switched ground, so if the other end of those wires isn't grounded, the shifter light won't work, even if everything is hooked up properly. I kinda hacked the harnesses together to get the tcase wiring to play nice with the truck, but again I'd have to crawl around to figure out exactly what I did.

 

That's probably more info than you were asking for...

[ParadiseMJ]

I stuck the gear from the old 21 spline into the 23 spline and hooked the cable (not wires) to that.  I get a good reading on my dash for speed....so I don't have an electric speedo.  Never the less, there is still the connection from the t-case to the tranny, but I don't know if those wires feed in to the harness, as for a post CAD front axle or just end.  It'd be nice if it could turn on the 4wd light.

[gogmorgo]

Okay, my bad. I guess my memory isn't as great as I thought it was, and I confused myself. But I've refreshed it a little. These sources helped me: http://www.weatherlover1.com/jeep/242.htm

http://comancheclub.com/topic/48509-4wd-dummy-light-question/

The second one I put together to kinda help answer someone else's question... not sure it did though. But my memory was fresher and I'm borrowing my own pictures.

 

This is the connector we're looking at under the hood, on the trans dipstick tube or thereabouts. It's the white one, not the black one for the NSS. If you follow the wires down the side, you'll find they split into two segments, one for the shift solenoids and the other for non-CAD T-cases. That's this connector that you plugged into on the side of the trans:

Using my volt meter, I got continuity between those two pins and the connector up at the dipstick tube. The dipstick tube connector has seven pins, three pairs and one single:

The two wires have continuity with the pair opposite the single end. But that may not matter...

 

Going back up to the first source I quoted, and like I mentioned above, the 4x4 light(s) has constant power to the bulb, and a switched ground. Going back to the connector on the side of the trans, one of the wires is for the part-time light and the other is for the full-time light. If you ground either of them, it should turn on that respective bulb... although you likely don't have the full-time bulb installed.

The 242's electric t-case switch grounds each wire. I'm not sure what the 231's does, but it may have to ground itself to an outside source? The CAD-equipped 4x4 lights were actually grounded by a vacuum switch. In my '91 it's on the CAD-housing itself, but I've been informed that it's somewhere else on Renix MJ's, but I can't remember where. I think I remember pulling wires and/or vacuum lines out of the 91 AW4's loom, but the continuity was still there after it's been pulled apart.

The more I think about it, the more I'm confident my harness hackery was just to get the speedometer working, and the 4x4 lights were actually just plug-and-play, which may be why I can't remember what I did. I put in the aw4/242 as a combo and never separated their harnesses, just used the '93 AW4's harness and plugged it directly into my '91 MJ's harness, with the two connectors at the dipstick tube...

[ParadiseMJ]

I'll try to trace the wires when I get the tranny out this week.  I'm wondering if I can splice that in to the wiring for the vacuum switch (since there are t-case no vacuum lines there anymore).