Push the vehicle with what? Unless you are muscle head Martin, you are not going to push an H3 anywhere.

How many miles did you say were on your truck? That might be an IMPORTANT piece of information with any tech question.

 

Agree with Doc that you’re likely not going to be able to push the H3 with any sort of ease, even if everything is in neutral.

As far as turning the driveshafts, even if the transfer case/transmission is in neutral, the driveshafts are still connected to the front/rear differentials, which drive power to the wheels; unless you try to spin them with enough force to move the vehicle, they’re not going rotate either.

Post a video of the stalling so we can have a better look of what is going on.

Question for you: when the vehicle stalls and dies, does the engine simply lock up (stop immediately), or does it wind down similar to how the engine sounds/feels when you turn the key off? In my I-5, there is a noticeable winding down sound as the engine comes to a stop after turning the key off. If the engine simply locks up, and doesn’t wind down smoothly (which I’m guessing is the case since you said the stalls got “less violent than previously observed”), then I’d be willing to bet your torque converter is locked/locking up when it shouldn’t be. This (in a sense) is turning your vehicle into a manual transmission with no way to disengage the transmission from the engine (effectively no clutch). You going from Park —> Drive is effectively just slamming a stopped vehicle into first gear, which would stall almost any manual vehicle.

I would guess the reason the vehicle doesn’t die when the transfer case is in neutral is because while the transmission output shaft would still be spinning, the transfer case itself is in neutral and not sending power to the wheels. Therefore the engine (and transmission output) can keep spinning freely with effectively no load in it.

Then, when you take the transfer case out of neutral, the moment you put the vehicle into gear, if the torque converter is locked up, the transmission output shaft will still be spinning, which will send power to the transfer case, which will send power to the wheels. If the vehicle isn’t moving (similar to a manual transmission vehicle stopped/stopping completely while still in gear) the engine will stop. And it will not “wind down” (as in turning the key off), no it will STOP.

So why would the vehicle not stall when moving in 4WD Low? It’s probably due to the gear ratio being so much lower, which puts less load on the engine to initially get the vehicle moving. So you are able to effectively shift the vehicle into first gear (going from Park —> Drive), but because there is less load on the engine, it doesn’t doesn’t stall immediately and the vehicle will start moving; however (as you said), once you come to a complete stop, the engine will die.

As a data point, in my I-5 Manual, in regular 4WD (driveshafts not locked), even in first gear, I have to feather the clutch to get the vehicle moving; if I release the clutch too fast, or with not enough gas applied, the engine will stall. However, if it’s in 4WD low, because the gearing is so much lower, even if I simply dump the clutch in first gear, the vehicle will not stall and the vehicle will start to move forward; in this case, it does not take feathering the clutch to get the vehicle moving in first gear.

Moral of the story; I would suspect your stalling issue has to do with your torque converter locking up when it should not be. The “why” behind that will require some more troubleshooting, but I believe this is the cause for the stalling.

 

 

This definitely gives me a lot more to test.

I will make the stalling video later today and post it.

 

Also scan and post the current & historical trouble code(s)

 

How many miles did you say were on your truck? How many miles since your last Trans Service? If this would have been provided way back when you would have been on the Trans issue initially.

Good luck.

 

Miles only matter when above 300k OEM 4L60E with proper maintenance!
In the meantime pull the trouble codes mostly caused by solenoids sticking.
OP is a parts thrower:

CONFUSEDIOUS SAY IF YOU THROW ENOUGH **** AT THE WALL, SOME OF IT IS BOUND TO STICK.

 

Video of the stalling when putting into gear. The whining sound is ground loop in the radio. Haven't addressed that yet.

Vehicle has 207k miles. No present codes, historical code was a bank 1 lean that was resolved when replacing the throttle body. Probably a vacuum leak that taking the hose off and replacing them fixed.

I'm not normally a parts slinger with my own vehicles, but this is a 17 year old vehicle for my 16 year old son and nothing I have replaced is something I wouldn't expect to replace on a vehicle of its age. While they haven't fixed the stalling issue, they do address future reliability and have given him an opportunity to learn his car.

 

After watching the video multiple times, if you listen with headphones, especially on the first stall, you can really hear a heavy “Thunk” when the engine stalls after putting the transmission in gear. This really leads me to believe the torque converter is locked up when it shouldn’t be; it’s not the engine simply winding down like it should when you turn the key off. Something is causing the engine to just stop altogether, which from my earlier post, I believe is the torque converter being locked up.

I’m not super familiar with the 4L60E, but it seems like at a glance, there is a pretty decent amount of information on the web on torque converter lockup failures in this model of transmission.

I would suspect that if the Torque Converter lockup solenoid/sensor was failed and causing the issue that this would trigger a check engine light. Since you don’t have any engine codes at the moment, unfortunately that means it is probably something purely mechanical within the transmission/converter, which means you may need a rebuild, or at a minimum, pulling the transmission so you could inspect/replace the torque converter.

This is an educated guess on my end, but if this were my vehicle, I would start by a) looking for a used (or refurbished) transmission from a reliable source, and/or b) look to get the vehicle to a transmission shop to have them take a look at it.

Apologies if this isn’t the greatest answer, or the one that you were looking for, but if it isn’t the torque converter being locked up that is causing your issue, then I honestly wouldn’t know what else to check at that point.

 

Luckily, we have a week of warm weather ahead.

I might as well use this as an opportunity to replace the universal joints while the driveshafts are out.