Explorer_PL
Explorer Addict
- Joined
- November 16, 2007
- Messages
- 2,914
- Reaction score
- 221
- City, State
- Rockland County, NY
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 06EB V8
As some of you read in my other posts, I have been chasing that dreaded growling/humming/grinding noise that many of us experience without any luck so far. I started easy with the rear bearings - no change. I figured they both had in excess of 100k miles so they are due anyway - that did not fix the noise. So I moved to the front hubs. One was also about 100k so no harm done. Still the noise. I replaced the last of 4 without much hope and the noise was still there. And yes, I had the truck in the air, in 4x4 and was listening to everything and could not locate the noise. It was coming at about 30-40 mph and then again at 55-70, more when slowing down before the stop. In my last attempt I put it up again in the air, safely on some wooden blocks, put my teenage son behind the wheel, switched to 4x4 and told him to keep it steady at 60 mph. I crawled under with a stethoscope and started listening to rear diff, transmission, transfer case and front diff. I could clearly hear the grinding coming from the front diff, and some noise coming from the transfer case. I know TC is using chain so I figured, it's normal. Since I was wrong so many times, I stopped by a tranny shop on the way to work and was willing to pay for a second opinion but the owner just took it in with no charge. He comes back and says my rear output bearing on the transfer case is shot, the seal is leaking ( I saw that too) and the driveshaft can be moved by hand up and down. And the noise is being transmitted to the front by the driveshaft. Out of curiosity, I asked for the price to rebuild it, and it would be $ 750 labor plus parts so about $ 1000 depending what else is shot inside. I searched car-parts and found a used TC with 30k miles rom an 07 for $ 150 so went and bought it. Looked it over and took it home. I do not know how I missed those 2 holes in the case:
It was greasy and dusty and the holes were covered with dirt. Luckily they had another one with 47k miles and gave me that one but I lost most of the Saturday since the yard was 65 miles away.
I started Saturday night in my driveway and let me tell you, this was one of the most horrible jobs I did on my Expl. Maybe I did not have proper tools, or experience (that for sure, never replaced TC before
), but I was expecting 4 hrs, took me more like 8 hrs. Do not start the job if you do not have every possible swivel and extension from 3" to 2' available. The drive shafts are simple: the rear uses 12 mm 12 point bolts, 4 on each end. The front has 6 8mm bolts at the TC, and 4 T27 torx in the front at the diff. That where the easy part ends. The cross member/support of the frame and the catalytic crossover pipe makes the access horrible. The 9 13mm bolts between TC and tranny - you can get to 5 of them with seeing them, the rest is hit and miss with extensions. I removed the tranny mount and tilted the whole engine/tranny/TC assembly downward so I could use the ratchet and extentions to reach the top 4 bolts. I was going to take more picture but I was too upset and was running out of time - I need to go to work MOnday morning
The "new" one
Driveshaft tunnel with TC still in place.
Luckily, I bought a scissor transmission jack from HF, that helped a lot
This is the original TC with 217k miles on it. The drops are coming from the rear seal, and it had tons of play here
This is the back of 6R60 after TC was removed
Original TC on the floor, it was not fun "bench pressing" it lying on the floor.
The noise is mostly gone. I believe my diff is still on the way out as I hear something sometimes. But that should be an easy job. It is held just by 4 bolts.
It was greasy and dusty and the holes were covered with dirt. Luckily they had another one with 47k miles and gave me that one but I lost most of the Saturday since the yard was 65 miles away.
I started Saturday night in my driveway and let me tell you, this was one of the most horrible jobs I did on my Expl. Maybe I did not have proper tools, or experience (that for sure, never replaced TC before
), but I was expecting 4 hrs, took me more like 8 hrs. Do not start the job if you do not have every possible swivel and extension from 3" to 2' available. The drive shafts are simple: the rear uses 12 mm 12 point bolts, 4 on each end. The front has 6 8mm bolts at the TC, and 4 T27 torx in the front at the diff. That where the easy part ends. The cross member/support of the frame and the catalytic crossover pipe makes the access horrible. The 9 13mm bolts between TC and tranny - you can get to 5 of them with seeing them, the rest is hit and miss with extensions. I removed the tranny mount and tilted the whole engine/tranny/TC assembly downward so I could use the ratchet and extentions to reach the top 4 bolts. I was going to take more picture but I was too upset and was running out of time - I need to go to work MOnday morning The "new" one
Driveshaft tunnel with TC still in place.
Luckily, I bought a scissor transmission jack from HF, that helped a lot
This is the original TC with 217k miles on it. The drops are coming from the rear seal, and it had tons of play here
This is the back of 6R60 after TC was removed
Original TC on the floor, it was not fun "bench pressing" it lying on the floor.
The noise is mostly gone. I believe my diff is still on the way out as I hear something sometimes. But that should be an easy job. It is held just by 4 bolts.
