more-than-full-time all-wheel-drive?
 

I go into 4WD daily to get up my driveway. From what ensued when I left in the AM the last couple of times, though the 4WD selector lever felt pretty much the same as always, I'm wondering if it somehow can shift PARTWAY out of 4WD. It's never been a smooth process, but the description below is a new level of fear and loathing.

I'm used to it taking a few revolutions of the wheels to complete the disengagement, and the 4WD light is consistent with this. It might sometimes grind a bit in the process. And last weekend, without my having used 4WD for some miles, the lever started "ringing," as if there were two gears that were rubbing and maybe about to grind against each other, but only from 0 to the top of first gear. That went away.

Then two mornings ago, I was 1 or 2 miles from home and moving at low speed, changing lanes at a signal, and there was a loud clunk from the 4WD selector, accompanied by loss of drive - as if I'd pulled a standard tranny out of gear. Just as abruptly, the drive came back. This scary brief event combined with the torrential rain made me fully expect to be blocking commuter traffic momentarily in a spectacular way, but I made it to work OK, and had no issues on the way home.

This morning, JUST after going back to 2WD at the base of my funky driveway, and then inching forward along the potholed little road where I live, there was a heavy, scrapy sound that was probably about in synch with wheel speed. Sounded like something stiff had gotten wrapped up in a moving front axle, but there wasn't anything /really/ there when I looked, and the axles shouldn't have been moving by then anyway. I had to get out of the way of some local traffic before doing anything to diagnose, but it became obvious at the bottom of the street (when the truck lurched around the hairpin) that it was still in 4WD. I went to N and worked the 4WD selector lever a bit, not feeling anything remarkable, and it let loose, going back into 2WD. I then drove to work without incident.

What am I up against? What am I in for? Should I join AAA about now?

i wud go thru the t case or have the t case gone thru sounds like you cud have worn shift pads. what is the fluid level and condition?