1997 Expedition Front End Wobble in 4WD

[tinkering]

There's a foot of snow on the roads now. I get a wobble when going about 25 mph/40 kph. It disappears when I switch back to 2WD.
When I creep along from a stop I can hear what sounds like loose wheel nuts, a front shaft U joint, or a bust in the diff, or what? Both hubs have been changed recently.
Anybody have some input?
Merry Christmas

 

[tinkering]

Well nobody has any input obviously.
It turned out to be the front shaft UJoints. Along with the wobble from 25 to 40 kph, it developed a light clunk from 1 to 4 kph, which sounded like a broken tooth on a gear. Turned out to be the UJoint with each revolution. That slop turned out to be the reason for the wobble at 25-40 kph.
I had some trouble dropping the front shaft though. The front end of the shaft Barely has room to slip down past the cross pipe with the slip joint fully retracted; the front end of the shaft drops down first, and then the back end pulls forward then down and out.

 

[riphip]

250k on it. You will have a lot of squeaks, squalls, howls, moans & crunching to keep up with. Have Fun & enjoy it!!

 

[tinkering]

250k on it. You will have a lot of squeaks, squalls, howls, moans & crunching to keep up with. Have Fun & enjoy it!!

There is 440,000 km on this one. It is rusty but a good hunting or work 4x4.

 

[zfifty]

Well nobody has any input obviously.
It turned out to be the front shaft UJoints. Along with the wobble from 25 to 40 kph, it developed a light clunk from 1 to 4 kph, which sounded like a broken tooth on a gear. Turned out to be the UJoint with each revolution. That slop turned out to be the reason for the wobble at 25-40 kph.
I had some trouble dropping the front shaft though. The front end of the shaft Barely has room to slip down past the cross pipe with the slip joint fully retracted; the front end of the shaft drops down first, and then the back end pulls forward then down and out.

Thanks for the information and repair tips! Guess you waited till the thaw to repair it.

There is 440,000 km on this one. It is rusty but a good hunting or work 4x4.

That's 273403.325 miles.

 

[tinkering]

Thanks to y'all on Expy forums!

 

[tinkering]

Thanks for the information and repair tips! Guess you waited till the thaw to repair it.

That's 273403.325 miles.

Thanks zfifty. It's great to have help on the forum. I hope my input is of some value too so I appreciate your thanks
Yah, I sure enjoy the warm weather for working on the vehicles and sometimes customers take me away from my own stuff.
What I did with the shaft was replace the baked Ujoint; the other Ujoint was still tight but just reaching it's dry stage so I pressed it apart, regreased it and pressed it back in the yokes (so much for 'lifetime greased units); I installed a grease nipple onto the slip joint sleeve. Click on the pic to see the location. I loaded the slip joint right up with grease. I turned the sleeve around 1/4 turns, greasing at each position; used a magnet to grab cuttings while drilling. I positikned the greade nipple opposite to the driveshaft weights. Anyway, thats it, I'm done... for now