ABS, advancetrac, and 4x4hi light

[MrPulldown]

Seems like a new problem is popping up with the Ford every couple of weeks. The most recent is that the ABS warning light is now on. I did a bunch of reading and it seems like it can be anything from bad wheel bearings to dirt grim accumulation, to bad sensors. Ugggg.

One thing that is of concern however is that might wife claims the truck seems to be a little herky jerky, at low speeds, especially backing up. Does this an indicator of anything.

Also do you have experience with pulling the ABS code. I found out that my ODBII code reader does not have the ABS function. Will any generic ODBII reader w/ABS be able to pull the codes. Might get a new reader.

There are 5 sensors right? 4 wheel and one rear diff?

What says you the most likely cause of my issue.

 

[WaterBrat]

Yes any OBD scanner that can read ABS codes will work. I would recommend any of the scantool obdlink brand for value and function. If your budget allows, get one that also reads HS can (Hi Speed data bus) as there are some additional features that can be accessed. I would also download forscan if you don't already have it. I don't know the number of sensors on the rear as mine has yet to fail. I have gotten good at replacing front hubs. If a code reader says front sensor, You can actually swap sensors from left and right to verify if sensor or hub. Swap sensor cables, clear codes and if new code is for the other side, that would be the cable. If code is for same side after swap then it is the hub. Again, only for front sensor code. Most decent hubs will come with new sensor cable. Good luck

 

[imp]

Seems like a new problem is popping up with the Ford every couple of weeks. The most recent is that the ABS warning light is now on. I did a bunch of reading and it seems like it can be anything from bad wheel bearings to dirt grim accumulation, to bad sensors. Ugggg.

One thing that is of concern however is that might wife claims the truck seems to be a little herky jerky, at low speeds, especially backing up. Does this an indicator of anything.

Also do you have experience with pulling the ABS code. I found out that my ODBII code reader does not have the ABS function. Will any generic ODBII reader w/ABS be able to pull the codes. Might get a new reader.

There are 5 sensors right? 4 wheel and one rear diff?

What says you the most likely cause of my issue.

@MrPulldown
@WaterBrat has pretty much covered the code reader dilemma. Now, 2004 Ex. without AdvanceTrac has 3 wheel speed sensors, 2 fronts, one rear, on the differential center section. AdvanceTrac equipped has 4, one at each wheel. None have 5. imp

 

[MrPulldown]

Thank you all. 4 sensors. OdbII abs generic reader ok.

Got to drive the Ex today. That herky jerry feeling is backing up and truning in 4wd hi. Truck is confused due to a bad abs input and turns on the 4wd. After driving a couple of 100 feet it figures out things are wonky, turns off the 4wd and flashes the 4wd hi warning light, and notifies that the adv trac if malfunc.

I think I have a bad front wheel bearing. It is howling and crunchy too. Going to check in a bit.

 

[MrPulldown]

Bad passenger wheel bearing. Alot of play. Half inch or so at the outer edge of the tires. Funny that I was hearing it about 750 miles ago, but felt nothing when I swapped on summer tires. Now it has really given up the ghost.

 

[MrPulldown]

Now the question of what replacment part to use. I will be going new hub +abs line route, most likely purchased from rock auto. They have popular ones, noted by a heart, for 50$. I am inclined to buy the timken ones for 108. Does it make much of a difference?

School me.

 

[WaterBrat]

It absolutely makes a difference. I only have access to China hubs here in the peninsula and I replace them about every 18 months. Get the timkens or SKF as they will last much longer. An additional reason that I have been replacing hubs so often is I did not have a torque wrench and was putting them on way to tight, causing premature failure. I got the big torque wrench from Home Depot (The axle nut gets torqued at around 175 ft # (please verify this number) for what I thought was a reasonable price. I was exceeding that by going a tight as I could with a 5 ft cheater bar. I also would recommend the offset wrench listed in the hub how tos. Do the repair as soon as you can. One of my hubs that wasn't that noisy went bad enough to cause the ABS to think there was slippage and locked the brakes on the other side. I was 40 miles from home and only got back by pulling the ABS fuse. That also forced the PCM to limp mode. Not a fun day. I hitched a ride the next day to get the replacement hub. I have replaced 4 in 4.5 years

 

[MrPulldown]

Just bought a timken hub/bearing/abs set. Thanks. While I was at it bought some new rotors and front pads. We have stopped driving the EX till I can get this repaired.

 

[imp]

Just bought a timken hub/bearing/abs set. Thanks. While I was at it bought some new rotors and front pads. We have stopped driving the EX till I can get this repaired.

@MrPulldown
You will do the work yourself? If you have never done Explorer 4X4 front wheel bearing replacement, I have a few hard-learned tips. If you have, you may have figgered them out yourself. Please ask, if I can help. imp

 

[MrPulldown]

@MrPulldown
You will do the work yourself? If you have never done Explorer 4X4 front wheel bearing replacement, I have a few hard-learned tips. If you have, you may have figgered them out yourself. Please ask, if I can help. imp

Only a fool does not take advice offered by someone with more experience then he. I have never done the wheel bearing job and am planning on doing them myself. Looks pretty straight forward. Something about hard to get bolts that needs an offset box wrench. I don't have one but figure I can get something from my double stacked tool box to work. Please share with me any tips you might have.

 

[imp]

Only a fool does not take advice offered by someone with more experience then he. I have never done the wheel bearing job and am planning on doing them myself. Looks pretty straight forward. Something about hard to get bolts that needs an offset box wrench. I don't have one but figure I can get something from my double stacked tool box to work. Please share with me any tips you might have.

@MrPulldown
Ya got it! I did a thread awhile back, will try to find it. ........It's here:
https://www.explorerforum.com/forums/index.php?threads/frt-whl-brng-praise-rockauto.451337/

Add to the text in link: If steering knuckle is left in straight-ahead position, the hub bolt heads, on the back side, will hit the C-V joint before being removable. I found that by turning the steering wheel full right turn, one bolt clears CV, full left turn, other bolt clears. Third bolt no problem. I used a standard box-end combination wrench, which has the standard angled box, 15 degrees(?). Metric, might have been 15mm, forget. Used a piece of pipe about a foot long over the end of wrench. Factory OEM thread locking material was the toughest **** I've encountered in 60 years of working on cars! Take it slow, a bite at a time, they'll come out. One would absolutely not loosen, hex head sheared corners off. That one I hacksawed the head off, damaging the hub but little damage to steering knuckle. Fortunately, that one was on top, accessible to the saw. Used the Sears Craftsman saw handle which looks like a file handle, with a screw to lock a hacksaw blade in place. Hopefully, you won't run into anything this extreme. Others here suggest heat. I avoid torching if possible. Gas cutting torch would have sliced the bolt head off, sure. But, knew the knuckle is ALUMINUM. Note that the HUB is threaded, not the knuckle, so a broken off or sawn off bolt head means little; the hub gets ****-canned, anyway.

When you tackle this job, feel free to email me if I might be able to help. Forum might the the slowest contact way. jack.brady39@yahoo.com
EDIT: No idea why forum highlighted some words above, mostly meaningless. IMPORTANT: Ford torque spec. on front wheel axle nut 180 ft-lbs. Some say overtightening damages the new bearing. 180 is a helluva lot of torque. I suspect the bearings have a solid spacer between cage & roller assemblies that limits preload to desired level, no matter how tight the nut is. May NOT be true of CHEAPIE bearings, though. FWIW, Ford high performance vehicles often came with a SOLID pinion bearing spacer instead of the "crush washer", harder to set up, but worth it. Sorry for running on at the mouth! imp

 

[MrPulldown]

Got my timken bearing last night. couple of observations. First is that the bearing was very tight, would not spin by simply turning it with one hand. This was to be expected with a new sealed bearing. Put the unit in my lap and turning it with both hands. Turns but found it to be notchy. 2 or 3 pronounced notches per revolution. Hope this is not a sign of a bad bearing. Next the ABS sensor is buried within the hub. THe ABS tone ring is not visible. This is surprising. The claims of gunk build up between the tone ring and sensor are not really possible seeing how everything is tucked away.

Waiting on my brakes before I set off on the replacement.

 

[4x4_eagle]

It absolutely makes a difference. I only have access to China hubs here in the peninsula and I replace them about every 18 months.

If you have to replaced them that often, you should have some other problem as well - bad shocks/struts probably.

 

[imp]

Got my timken bearing last night. couple of observations. First is that the bearing was very tight, would not spin by simply turning it with one hand. This was to be expected with a new sealed bearing. Put the unit in my lap and turning it with both hands. Turns but found it to be notchy. 2 or 3 pronounced notches per revolution. Hope this is not a sign of a bad bearing. Next the ABS sensor is buried within the hub. THe ABS tone ring is not visible. This is surprising. The claims of gunk build up between the tone ring and sensor are not really possible seeing how everything is tucked away.

Waiting on my brakes before I set off on the replacement.

@MrPulldown
The fronts I have seen seem to have the inboard side of the hub swaged over the bearing OD, rendering it impossible to tear the bearing apart without cutting. Not so rears, where the bearing is pressed into the suspension knuckle.

"Notchy" feel would not be good, IMO, though mine were extremely tight, just as you describe. However, I used Import the first side, Timken the other, about a year later. Both are performing just fine. The tone ring is buried, with plenty of grease inside. If it were me, I would remove the ABS sensor, then check if the "notchiness" is gone. If it were, the sensor was interfering with the tone ring teeth, and likely would not have worked for long, if at all. That being the case, it would speak mighty poorly for the "Cadillac" of bearings people. imp

 

[MrPulldown]

Started the tear down last night. All is well except for the top bolt that holds the hub/bearing on. Can't seem to get to it. Was about to pull the upper ball joint and drop the knuckle forward. However I did not recall seeing anyone do this in the write up/vids so I called it a night and had a drink. Looks like I can move the CV axle around a little more to gain access. Tonight is round 2.

I am also glad that I bought new rotors and pads. The brakes were terrible but the front pad and front face of the rotors were OK. The back side/piton side pad was toast. Maybe 3mm till the backing plate. The rotor and pad had also worn very unevenly, hogging out a valley in the center of the rotor. Slide pins were a bit gummed but not bad.

Will report back when I have more progress.

 

[WaterBrat]

Started the tear down last night. All is well except for the top bolt that holds the hub/bearing on. Can't seem to get to it. Was about to pull the upper ball joint and drop the knuckle forward. However I did not recall seeing anyone do this in the write up/vids so I called it a night and had a drink. Looks like I can move the CV axle around a little more to gain access. Tonight is round 2.

I am also glad that I bought new rotors and pads. The brakes were terrible but the front pad and front face of the rotors were OK. The back side/piton side pad was toast. Maybe 3mm till the backing plate. The rotor and pad had also worn very unevenly, hogging out a valley in the center of the rotor. Slide pins were a bit gummed but not bad.

Will report back when I have more progress.

With the axle nut off, you may be able to push the axle (CV half shaft) in toward the motor 1 to 2 inches, This helps me with room to get a bite on the nut holding the hub. Thanks for the update.

Skipper in Mx.

 

[MrPulldown]

With the axle nut off, you may be able to push the axle (CV half shaft) in toward the motor 1 to 2 inches, This helps me with room to get a bite on the nut holding the hub. Thanks for the update.

Skipper in Mx.

Yep got the axle nut off and air hammered the CV axle in. But I think I can get it in a little bit further. At least the video showed it in further than mine. Otherwise pretty smooth going job.

 

[WaterBrat]

Yep got the axle nut off and air hammered the CV axle in. But I think I can get it in a little bit further. At least the video showed it in further than mine. Otherwise pretty smooth going job.

You will need a slide hammer to get the hub off. Rent the kind that screws onto the wheel studs NOT jaws (curved hooks). You can also use this to run the axle in instead of hammering on it. The first one I did I had to have someone hit the hub repeatedly with a hand held sledge (2 Lbs) while I pulled the slide hammer to get it loose .

 

[imp]

@MrPulldown
Like this:

Use it first with the center rod and hammer removed, and a long threaded to the head bolt, mine is 5/8-18 thread, newer will be metric, installed as below to press the axle shaft spline back out of the hub. After that, the hammer is used to pull the hub out of the knuckle. NEVER hammer on the axle shaft; damage to the CV joint is likely. imp

 

[MrPulldown]

Getting there. I was not able to get that top bolt of the 3 for the bearing off without popping the upper ball joint and flipping down the knuckle. I wonder if there are various versions of the knuckle design over the various years. I had the axle already pushing out of the bearing/hub. That is easy to do with an air hammer and the pencil point attachment. No worries about bungling the splines. Even with it pushed in all the way there was still no way to get a socket and wrench/breaker bar on there. But once the knuckle is free you can easily get to it with the impact and zip the bolt free. This is how I would do it from now on for all 3 bolts. Hopefully I will never have to do this again, but from service records only one of the rear bearing was ever replaced. I feel the driver front will soon follow.

I thought that I might be able to hammer the bearing/hub off. In the youtube video I watched the mechanic did. Was not able to. Thus tonight I will rent the slide hammer. I was trying to avoid this. In the mean time I finished RRing the driver side brakes, and mostly completed the Passenger side. Still need to finish the bleed. Pushed the pistons all the way back. Cleaned and lubed the slides pins. Sucked all the old DOT3 out of the reservoir and filled with fresh. Was using my one man vac bleeder at the caliper, but it doesn't work very well, so I will have wife/son pump the pedal tonight.

One last push tonight and I should get it done. A check up on tourqe specs.
180ft/lbs on the axle with the car on the ground
80 or 90 for the bearing hub?
What about the brake caliper bolts?