Help with 4wd popping out of gear while driving (picc & video of hubs + 1/2 shaft)

[zippoz]

Hello! This is my first post here, ill try and make it a good one, and I am hoping that the detail that im providing will help you knowledgeable folks diagnose what is going on with my car.

I have a 1994 Ford Explorer with the electric push button 4WD option. Both lights for high and low turn on, and they both used to work.

however over last winter (while living in south lake tahoe CA), while driving up steep hills, or while towing another car in snow, it would routinely make a loud pop, and go back into 2wd, often with some scary swerving as a result.

When I bought the car, the seller told me it was stuck in 4wd so they greased the hell out of the hubs and it fixed it. There is quite a bit of brown gunk in there.

Today, i was unable to get the car to go into 4wd while on gravel, I had some loud thumps on the drivers side front axle. Then when i tried to disengage the 4wd and drive down the paved street, i had some clicking coming from the passenger side. It stopped when i reversed and went back into drive a few times.

today I was changing my brakes, and decided to do some investigation to see if i could fix the problem. I took several pictures of the hub and connecting half shaft. Also there is a video of the play in the half shaft. I can pull it out and push it in about 1/2 half inch or more.

heres the video of the half shaft, the vehicle was off and in park with the 4wd disengaged. i dont know if this amount of play might be the culprit

(HERE IS A DIRECT LINK TO THE PHOTOBUCKET VIDEO SO YOU CAN STREAM IT)

here is the pic of my gunked up hub, it seems to rotate just fine.

heres a pic of the outside of the tire/hub before i took the tire off. i dont see how this could be useful, but i took it so might as well post it.

so if any of you could help, that would be really great! I have a thousand miles to drive in the next few days so im hoping to get this whole thing fixed.

 

[siguaw]

Do your 4x4 lights on the dash stay lite when it pops out? You need to be sure if it is transfer case or hub. Sounds more like hub. My advice it to switch them to manual locking hubs. Kinda pricey for what they are but they are much more reliable. If your lights on the dash go out when it jumps out of 4x4 then you have a transfer case issue. I am not too familiar with these auto lockers since I converted mine right after I bought my rig but I do remember reading that too much grease keeps them from fully engaging.

 

[Anime]

There's a 4WD troubleshooting guide sticky to help with these sort of issues on the first gens:

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202166


Basically, use ATF in the hubs to degrease them, grease prevents the hubs from locking.

If the light goes off on the 4WD switch, it's either a bad switch or a transfer case/transfer case motor issue. You may just need a new switch or you may need to adjust the motor.

It could also be the transfer case control module, located on the inside of the rear panel on the driver's side. The capactitors go bad over time and eventually leak, destroying the circuit board connections.

 

[RangerX]

Sounds like hubs to me, too. Maybeyou can clean out the grease and cure the problem, but it sounds like they have worn out. They don't last forever, and yours are almost 20 years old...
When mine went bad, I would notice it climbing up a steep hill in 4wd, like you.

 

[zippoz]

The 4wd lights go on and stay on the entire time.

 

[siguaw]

Then it is your hubs. Try to clean them first it is simple enough. If that doesn't work then either rebuild them or just upgrade to manual.

 

[Roadrunner777]

Then it is your hubs. Try to clean them first it is simple enough. If that doesn't work then either rebuild them or just upgrade to manual.

+2 or 3... clean the hubs. You might get lucky.

 

[zippoz]

okay, so i got an old soup can, and filled her up with ATF, got her to around 200, and filled and flushed my hubs with it a few times. its interesting how it disapears down into the gears.

one interesting note, there was a clear difference between the hubs.

when I picked up one of the hubs (call this hub 1) by the outer ring (the one with 3 triangle shaped points) it would slide upwards and lock into place so that i could not rotate the hub without rotating the inner gears.

The other hub (hub 2) did not have the same 'play' or range of motion up and down, and would NOT lock up. no matter what i did, it would spin freely while being held the same way.

Also, hub 2 had a little removable copper clamp type ring in the bottom center of the gear, while hub 1 did not....

i put them back on, and got my 4wd KIND of working, it would work at low speeds, but would still POP out of gear on hard turns and accelerations.

im thinking that just one of these hubs is broken, and i dont know which one...

 

[zippoz]

and here is a video of exactly what im talking about with the 2 hubs where one rotates and one locks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRb6Ybis3EU&feature=youtu.be
which one is the bad one?

 

[siguaw]

watched your vid. I think you made the right choice on the bad one.