Problem with ABS? Something else?

[ChrisSnr]

I'm having a rather strange problem with my 2004 Ford Explorer that I'm hoping someone can help me with...I'm not THAT experienced as a mechanic, but I have a couple of people who are pretty good -- but I'd just like to know what I'm in for as far as what might be wrong and how much it's going to cost and whatnot.

Basic stats: 2004 Ford Explorer XLS (?) with 4WD now @ 123k miles

Ok first things first, had to change the drivers side front bearing about 6 months ago. About 4 months ago this problem started.

The problem in question is that the car would make a horrible grinding noise and would tend to pull to the left, sometimes hard while decelerating. The noise was still there somewhat while accelerating, but there was no noticeable pull at all. This noise was definitely coming from the front end and I instantly feared the bearing was shot again. Checked it out and the new bearing was just fine.

Thought about it a bit and realized the only way the car would be pulling like it is would be if the tire on the left was moving slower than the tire on the right for some reason.

Next step was to take the tire off and check to see if the left front driver tire had any problems. It certainly did, as it did not spin continuously but constantly got 'held up' I guess is the best way to put it? The hub would spin but also stop intermittently. We tried a few basic things, but the one thing that actually 'fixed' the problem (or rather made it go away) was unplugging the abs sensor under the hood. Once we did that, the car no longer had the original issue. Of course, being that we basically put chewing gum on a leak that's not a viable long term solution.

I've been doing some reading on here tonight but haven't found anyone with something exactly like this -- although I admittedly didn't look through everything either. It would seem to my rather amateur mechanical mind that whatever the problem is was being controlled by the ABS sensor -- which I know has a few different functions itself that relate to traction, speed, etc.

But I'm trying to figure out what that might be and the solution? Could it be the ABS sensor on the new bearing is simply defective? Maybe it was sending wrong data or receiving wrong data or something which made it think the car was in trouble and the ABS was applying itself on the front driver side while decelerating or something? Could it be something else and unplugging the ABS was simply a weird coincidence?

Looking for some much smarter mechanical opinions than my own

EDIT: I don't have any idea how I did this, but I posted this in the wrong forum, this should be in the stock forum I'd think. As someone who owns a huge forum myself, this is kind of an embarrassing mistake

 

[mr2fix2it]

the fact that the truck is pulling left is telling m that there is an issue with the right front reason being when this happens abs releases the wheel it sees stopped (loosing signal) I would have someone with a scanner look at this if it happens a lot it should be easy to see or you could guess and replace another hub and hope its the problem

 

[Eksak]

I had my ABS light come on the other day, with an intermittent 4X4 light blinking. took it back to Midas where I had the entire front end and rear end replaced this past summer, wasn't thinking it was anything special, maybe the sensor had become dirty. Come to find out it was the bearings that went out, it was under warranty for 3 years or 36000 miles. so i got off pretty good. we live 18 miles out of town, and when I drove in the truck to drop it off, the "whump, whump,whump" sound started.