Hi there
The TC and ABS should not come on unless something -is- wrong. Sure, when the computer intervenes and starts braking wheels due to wheel spin, it will let you know it does so by turning on the lights on your dash. However, as soon as the control has been regained, the computer will cut out again and the lights should turn of.
I take it your matrix display (in the centre) also gives you an error message? Sometimes improperly seated ABS sensors will cause an error message to pop-up when driving slowly and ever so slightly breaking. I get it often when I reverse but am too lazy to reseat the bloody buggers right now
So, it could be an ABS sensor that is out of whack. If you have the possibility to read the error codes from your P38 it'll tell you why it cut out. Also, it is normal for the error to be cleared from the dash when restarting the vehicle. The errors are retained in memory though. What could also be a problem is that the P38 does not use vacuum assisted brakes, it uses an electricly powered pump to keep up brake pressure. This pump can fail or the black sphere on top can fail and you loose brake pressure. You can recognize this when you brake 4 times the pump should kick in. If however the system has issues it'll kick in more often and when starting vehicle in the morning it will run for a long time to build pressure back up (I have this problem right now). When the ABS/TC kicks in the brakes are applied and released often so there is a lot of loss of pressure that needs to be replenished by the pump. When it can not keep up (which it should under normal circumstances) the BECM will also throw an error.
Regarding "stalling" and the low range selector. That is odd. First of all, the car should never stall. Either the torque converter will keep the car stationary, or, when not enough power is applied or the angle too steep it will slip and the car will move backwards but I have never had it stall or cut out under any condition and I have been going up and down some crazy steep hills. I am not sure what happened but if I understand you correctly the vehicle was in high and you wanted to switch to low range? The transfercase houses the low and high range gears and they are selected by means of an electric motor that is operated by a switch in case of a manual or in case of an auto by a switch in the H pattern gear selector. If low range is not selected regularly the motor can seize and then things go real bad real fast. Perhaps your P38 was not used of bitumen often and the transfercase is a bit stuck (guess you loosened it up though!)
And finally, yes, the P38 does not have a centre locking diff but a viscous coupling which is basicly a limited slip centre diff. And I mean limited!
In all, I hope you find the problem, but it sounds to me that the car needs some TLC.
Cheers,
-P
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