98 expy 4x4 fubar.

[737jet]

Okay, so I went to do a touch of off roading today. Pulled up to a hill I wanted to climb. Put her in neutral, flicked the selector to 4lo.

Heard some god awful sounds, turned the engine off.

Started it back up, whirring sounds were present, got worse with rpm. Selected 2wd, wouldn't go. Put it in drive, no go. sounds still present.


Farted around for a half hour, got it into 2wd. Or so I thought. got to the road, heard a funny whinning sound.

Punched it, shifted to third, rpm's held at 4500. truck slowed down, whirring noises and I'm in neutral again.

Managed to get her into 4x4 high, got it home.

WTF is wrong. Pls tell me it's just the 4x4 motor. If it's the tranny or transfer case, I'm done. No flow and pretty soon, getting laid off from work.

 

[737jet]

Update,

Okay, I tried to take the motor out. Wow, whoever designed this system deserves a full size 15 shoe up there a$$. I disconnected the wiring harness to the motor and removed it. Gues what?

There's still 4 wires that go to from the motor to the trans case that cannot be removed. WTF? Am I supposed to cut those wires? I even removed the motor from the 90degree gear box. The motor came off with springs and brushes. Still, two wires remain.

Any ideas?

 

[737jet]

Got it out, unfortunately had to cut 1 wire though. Here's the weird part. Found a bunch of filings on one the magnetic senors on t case.

 

[AvroAero]

Get another to put in? Not sure of the symptoms of a bad motor so not sure if thats it.

 

[XLTman]

This kinda sounds like i problem i had before i climbed a steep hill in 4low then when i got back down i tried to take it out of 4low and it was stuck 737jet have you tried throwing exp. into reverse and then into neutrel to unlock all four or just dissconect the battery hope this helps

 

[737jet]

Okay, so changed the motor out today. Turns out I didn't need to cut the last wire. You have to snap the back of the harness connector off, take the red pin retainer in the connector off and get a small pick to hold the tabs open as you pull the wires out. What a stupid a$$ design. WTF else is a connector for?

people die everyday for less and needlessly. The idiot who designed this shouldn't be breathing in my opinion.

After I swapped the motors it worked just fine. I was a bit scared that there might have been damage to the t case so I had the fluid changed at a shop. They said there was no significant metal in the oil.

If anyone else has a problem similar or just a problem with the 4x4, there is one thing that I'm pretty sure will work.

t cases make metal. A little or alot, who cares, ford's tolerances aren't exactly rocket science but hey they work. What I found is the two magnetic sensors that tie into the motor's harness and are held onto the t case with 2 10mm bolts should be cleaned.

There job is to detect when a certain gear is engaged ( 4HI, 4 LO ). when I took mine out to change the motor, guess what? fine metal shavings were stuck on the magnetic sensors.

I think the metal filings on the sensor might give the whole joke for a 4X4 system a false position, hence the grinding and disengagement.

Just take em out, clean em, throw em back in. You never know and it's alot easier than pulling pins from harness connector.

 

[737jet]

Spoke too soon. Now it engages and then the 4x4 light goes off, and won't come out of low. In park and in Neutral.

 

[737jet]

Okay, so after troubleshooting it myself, I realise that I need a scan tool to get past the multimeter tests.

She's at ford and they've told me it's going to be at least 2 hours labour at $101 per hour.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

I know nobody really cares about this thread right now or they simply don't know what it could be but at least this way, you will have a definate answer as to what went wrong.

All of the threads out there on this subject list all the problems but no real answers. Frustrating.

I will have the answer! at the cost of an arm and a leg of course......

 

[ELVATO]

Damn, that sucks. Hopefully the stealership is able to fix the problem, without it costing too much.

 

[GRIP]

we care i never had a problem with 4 wheel drive so i have no answer's 4 you. where i live the only time it's in 4wd is like 2 times a year for 30 seconds to get out of some snow froma parking spot and thats it. the rest of the time it's beating up the black top.