2004 explorer xlt 4.0 brake grabbing and dragging | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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2004 explorer xlt 4.0 brake grabbing and dragging

blueovals

New Member
Joined
August 9, 2016
Messages
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City, State
postville iowa
Year, Model & Trim Level
2004 Ford explorer xlt
I have a 2004 Ford explorer xlt 4.0 that had a grinding sound coming from the front left. Myself and my buddy both thought wheel bearing. Ordered a new one with the abs sensor included. During replacement I found a bad tie rod end and sway bar link. Another parts store run. Reassembled and torqued. Test drove. The abs light stayed on and the brake seems to be dragging and grabbing hard frequently. Since I didn't have the foresight to get a code reader with abs code capabilities it drove it 20 miles to O'Reilly to have them read. There were 4. I had the numbers written down but my wife threw the envelope they were on away thinking it was a grocery list. The descriptions were 1: brake pressure transducer fail. 2: left front wheel speed sensor signal not received 3: right front wheel speed sensor signal not recieved 4: system test not complete.( paraphrasing because the guy unplugged the reader). He said the last one came up because I hadn't disconnected the battery and let the pcm reset. He told me I might get lucky if I just disconnected it for half hour then reconnect and start it. I came home and did all of that. Still grabbing. I read a post either on here or another forum about the transducer claiming its the sensor on the front of the master cylinder. All comments agreed that it is a dealer only part usually around $15-$20. Called the closest dealership. The parts management says the correct name is brake fluid pressure sensor. And it's $70. Before sinking another chunk of change into it does anyone else have a better idea what might be going on? And if its that sensor can anyone point me to a cheaper one?
 












Since no one seems to have a clue I'll post the update/solution and hope that someone might be able to use the information I found with my wrenches. I jacked the whole front up to check the drivers side brake hose and see if it had the delaminating issue. I found that the passenger side wheel bearing was actually worse than the drivers side that I just replaced. In fact there where no bearings left. So my guess was that the stability control was compensating for not getting a reading from the grenaded bearing so it was causing the drivers side brake to grab. I tore into the passenger side. I found I also had a bad ball joint. And the sway bar link is shot. And the tie rod end. So after an expensive parts store run everything was replaced. I disconnected the battery to let the pcm clear codes. After 15 minutes I reconnect and test drive. No more 4x4 kicking in and out. No more brake drag/grab. Abs light was still on. Came home and got sent to the store with the wife's list of things I haven't done today while working on the explorer. Fired up and no light. Drove to store and back and no lights still. Now I have to get an alignment and I'd say problem solved.
 






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