Help..whining noise

[lowendrider]

Hello all...I have an 05 explorer with 80,000 miles. Within the last few weeks I've noticed a whining noise at low speed and when coming to a stop. I can't hear it above about 20mph but it may be present. The best I can describe it is like tire whine from mud tires. Of course this is a stock street tire vehicle. This is the wifes vehicle and she also mentioned that the e-brake was sticking recently, may not be related at all. Any suggestions??? Any help would be greatly appreciated, I don't want to let it go for long if its something that needs immediate attention. Thanks in advance..

 

[xlt03]

You didn't mentioned if it was a 2 or 4 wheel drive. I would start with the e-brakes since that's a complaint, they have a tendancy to debond from the shoes and will float inside the drum/rotor. The e-brake engages the inside of the rear rotors. You'll probably will have a difficult time removing the rotors since there will be a bit of rust on the inside to the drum part of rotor since the e-brake shoes does not rub the the edge. Knock out the metal plug on the backside of backing plate will give you access to the star wheel adjuster for e-brake shoes. New shoes should come with rubber plugs. Shoes are similar to regular rear brake shoe setup. The only thing you'll have difficulty with is replacing the spring, use a long scratch awl as your tool to snap/slide the end of the spring into the hole.

 

[lowendrider]

Thanks for the suggestion. Its a 2wd, forgot to mention that. As far as the e-brake shoes go, are there shoes on both sides? If not, which side houses the e-brake? Thanks for the input, I'll give it a look tomorrow.

 

[xlt03]

Both sides, just like regular drum brakes.

 

[lowendrider]

That makes sense..I picked up a haynes manual this evening and read a little about it. I noticed that they say to remove part of the cowl under the hood to access the brake assy and to pull the cable and insert a drill bit to lock it into place. I guess I'll understand it better when I see it. Is this necessary?

 

[xlt03]

My experience is on a 2003. Assuming the 2005 parking brake is the same set up, you don't have to remove part of cowl. The part they're referring to is panel next to the parking brake pedal. On mine, you can pull the parking brake cable from underneath the vehicle right under the driver's door to give the cable some slack. Putting the drill bit into the hole where the metal arm of the parking brake pedal stops the spring from pulling on the cable (taking up the slack) so you do have slack on the cable so you can work on the e-brakes. Hope this helps, my Haynes is for 2002 and 2003.

 

[lowendrider]

I looked at the e-brakes yesterday and everything looked fine. The only thing I did was adjust them. I guess I'll have to keep an ear out for the whine to get worse. I did jack the front up and give the tires the old push-pull check for bad bearings. I know this isn't very scientific but I did notice the left front had a slight amount of play in it when grabbing the top and bottom of the tire and trying to rock it back and forth. The right front had very very little.

 

[Ryan_289]

My wifes 05 had a terrible whine for a while. I jacked up the front end and didnt get any play on either one. I finally removed the front tires and put my ear up to it and spun it and you could hear a slight noise. I replaced the bearing and sure enough that fixed it.

 

[lowendrider]

Thanks for the input Ryan. This whine isn't loud right now and you can only hear it at low speeds but I'll have to keep an eye on it and may end up replacing the hub/bearings.

 

[meternerd]

Most likely rear wheel bearings if it sounds like tire noise. Replaced both rears on my daughter's 4wd and it's now quiet. Try jacking up the rear, grab the tire top and bottom and try to rock it. If there is any play at all in the bearing, it's shot. Sticking parking brake is probably unrelated. In my humble opinion, it's best to buy the Timken hub/bearing/snapring set.

 

[chrhoward]

When I test drove my Limited at the dealership I heard a bad whining noise, it had 96 thousand on it at the time. I had them drive it and they heard it. They took the vehicle to their main dealership and had the ring and pinion changed out. I went and test drove it again and the noise was gone. It was in my contract when I bought the vehicle that anything they replaced that I knew about before I bought the vehicle was covered for as long as I have it. About 3 weeks after I purchased it, the whining was back. So im just going to drive it until something goes wrong.

 

[ndtscott]

theres was a TSB on a rear end whining noise that was a common customer complaint a few yrs ago. I was assistant parts manager at a couple of ford dealerships in Ga before moving to Tx. This TSB simply involved adding a friction modifier manufactured by ford under motorcraft pn: xl-3 if I remember correctly. It is a simple squeeze bottle with a nipple and a clear tube. You just remove the check/fill plug on the rearend and insert the tube then add the entire contents of the friction modifier to your rearend. I hope this helps those of you that don't have bad bearings!

 

[imp]

When I test drove my Limited at the dealership I heard a bad whining noise, it had 96 thousand on it at the time. I had them drive it and they heard it. They took the vehicle to their main dealership and had the ring and pinion changed out. I went and test drove it again and the noise was gone. It was in my contract when I bought the vehicle that anything they replaced that I knew about before I bought the vehicle was covered for as long as I have it. About 3 weeks after I purchased it, the whining was back. So im just going to drive it until something goes wrong.

I once had similar noise (in a Mustang Cobra, not Explorer, though), added friction modifier; noise went away for a few days, then came back. An additional bottle of the "wonder-juice" did the trick, and the noise stayed away. BTW, this type of problem (i.e., differential clutch noise) does not occur with "open" type differentials, only "limited-slip". imp

 

[ndtscott]

Also, the way to differentiate between the two concerns is to observe the whining noise while driving and determine if your whining noise is constant regardless of throttle application or if it goes away while coasting. If it goes away while coasting you have a problem in your rear differential which will likely be either your ring gear and pinion set or the friction modifier. If it's still present while coasting your problem will likely be related to your hub bearing.

 

[imp]

Also, the way to differentiate between the two concerns is to observe the whining noise while driving and determine if your whining noise is constant regardless of throttle application or if it goes away while coasting. If it goes away while coasting you have a problem in your rear differential which will likely be either your ring gear and pinion set or the friction modifier. If it's still present while coasting your problem will likely be related to your hub bearing.

As a rule, quite right! However, one should be aware that in the case of ring-gear-tooth SCORING due to excessive heat, foreign contamination (metal chips from broken parts, usually), both DRIVE and COAST faces of the teeth may be damaged, causing noise both under load, and coasting conditions.

It happened to me, once, long ago.......imp