2002 XLS died while driving. HELP!!!!

[fordexpfan]

Hello all and thanks in advance for any ideas on this!

I have a 2002 ford explorer xls 4x4. It has 200k miles on it, rebuilt transmission at 100k, new altenator at 189k and battery tests good. Was driving down the express way in it doing 80mph when all of the sudden the truck made a "lurching" motion (jumped a little bit forward) then started to decelerate. No weird noises, the check engine light has been on for a bad 02 censor but the abs light came on, the battery light came on and the check gauge light came on. The truck came to a stop and there it stayed. I turned the engine off and then tried to turn it on again. The ABS/Check Gauge/Battery/Check engine light came on and it attempts to start (lights dim very, very slightly) but nothing, only a high pitch whining noise coming from under the truck. Someone suggested this might be a starter issue but I am not sure that if the truck was driving and the starter died, that the truck would do this? Any suggestions? I am going to try and replace the starter but I would hate to do that to find out that's not it. Someone also mentioned it possibly being a crank issue?

Finally, the whining noise can be best described as a gear spinning with no connection. Not a grinding/clicking/clacking noise but just a spinning noise.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[BrooklynBay]

Welcome to this forum! I've moved your thread into the stock 2002-2005 section. Check your battery cables & terminals.

 

[BrianDye]

Yea, check battery cables, and terminals, I went all the way to the point of (getting a new starter and everything) and trying for days to get my old one off, to find out that I had a loose battery cable going down to it.

 

[fordexpfan]

still working on it

Just got the truck into the garage and have begun tracing the wires. Some boards are associating this issue with a bad camshaft synchronizer. Thoughts on this? Oh, as far as the cables go, so far, they seem to be okay. Keep you posted!

 

[kschlege]

my 2002 4.0 stalls while driving. were you able to fix your stalling problem?

 

[04ExBlack]

this is an old thread i know ...but as far as the stall out issue i am not sure ...but the sound you are decribing is definatly the starter just spinning and the soleniod not kicking out ....if it didn t stall i would say it was just your soleniod ...but it could most def have a wiring problem(s) what was the solution?