When I started my truck this morning and backed out of the driveway and came to a stop in the road a really loud groaning noise came from the rear. What could it be??

Might have been the brakes..either driving brakes or parking brakes.

Rear Brakes?

95XLT...... Beat me by a nanosecond!

Oh ok.

Could you be a little more specific?

What should I do to remedy the problem?

Wow TPLYNCH. that was a close one..lol

Anyway, when you park your truck do you use the parking brake? If so i'm wondering if thats what it was. the parking brake on my truck is problematic and yours may have been dragging the while time you were backing up. Also when was the last time the rear brakes were checked and the slide rails lubed? The explorer is known for breaks dying early due to slide rails that are not kept lubricated enough.

To check the brakes, lift up the rear wheels off the ground and try (with the truck in neutral) turning each wheel both forwards and backwards by hand. if it is not grabbing or making scraping noises then I would think it's ok. after that remove the wheels and look at the condition of the rear brake pads. while your in there spread a bit of synthetic caliper grease on the slide rails and you should be ok.

Ok slide rails sounds about right. I live in a very flat area and rarely use the brake but I used it alot on the GWNF run. Where are the slide rails located?

Originally posted by Jason_25
Ok slide rails sounds about right. I live in a very flat area and rarely use the brake but I used it alot on the GWNF run. Where are the slide rails located?
The slide rails are what the regular brake pads slide on when you press on the brake. if you remove the wheel, you will see the pads and at the edges you'll see a silver metal thing that the "tabs" ride on..hard to explain...hopefully you understand.

The parking brake is actually located inside the rear disk. in order to access the parking brakes to check the shoes on those (mine were cracked and melted as several other people's were also) you need to remove the caliper, the brake pads, then the disk should be able to slide off the hub. it might take some hitting with a rubber mallet to break it loose. If you have a Chiltons manual it should help.
ford sells a kit to replace your parking brake shoes for like $100. It's sort of a pain to install the kit. we installed anew kit and the brakes were shot 10,000 miles later so now I just don;t use the parking brake at all.
Good luck to you!