I have a 2004 F150, 5.4L, 2WD, 105K miles.

For about the past 2 months I have noticed a humming sound while driving in my truck. It sounds identical to a bad wheel bearing.

I took my truck to a local repair guy, he did a sound diagnostic test and he wants to replace my entire rear end (everything between the tires) with a product made by Jasper Remanufacturing .... total cost $3500.

I want to get a second opinion from my dealer, but he can't see me until 9/19.

So I am asking you all if you are experiencing anything similar.

I have looked at the TSBs and found this one TSB 05-23-3 ... have any of you dealt with this TSB or had this repair done? If so, how did it turn out, did the problem occur again in time, do you remember the cost?

Also as info, years ago I had the dealer do the fix for TSB 06-4-4 under warranty.

Any input will be helpful, thanks.

 

clutch pack is not your problem. that only works when turning corners. Hard to say if you need bevel gear and pinion or not. I would think the wheel bearings were suspect first, then pionion bearing... what does the oil look like ? Are they guessing or did they look / determine the problem ?

 

thanks steve .... they didn't open anything up to pinpoint the problem, said it would have been expensive since they would have had to replace the fluids ..... told me they did a "sound" diagnostic.

also, looks like i posted this in the wrong forum. I have a 04 f150 and this is the 97-03 f150 forum .... perhaps the moderator can move it for me.

 

Its not easy to narrow down wheel bearings from differential bearings. If one put the truck on a lift and rotated the tires and played with the drive shaft, you might get a good idea. Your problem could be as simple as wheel bearings and seals on both sides... or it could be the pinion bearing, or the bevel gear bearings. I would "guess" in that order. Wheel bearings normally fail more often than pinion bearings. Differentila bearings seldom fail unless the pinion goes out and you keep running. You could measure backlass in the drive shaft. You could remove the rear cover on differential and look at the gears and measure pinion backlash and thrust or end shake.

 

I had this on a '94 F-150. Since then, a couple of others. On two of them, when the bearing noise was enough to hear it clearly, the heat generated also caused slight fluid leaks down the inside face of the backing plates. If you have that, then almost surely the bearings/seals are going.

Dave

 

Meh... they are probably right. It would be easier to just replace the whole thing, but dont let those guys rob you blind. There are tons of junkyards all over the nation that will ship parts with low miles fast. I had a transmission sent from main to Tennessee from a newer vehicle and it arrived in about two days. Oh yeah, and it was really cheap.The rear end is not to difficult to transplant. You can put the new one in with a buddy in about 4-6hrs

 

I had that problem a couple years ago on my 99'f150 and I just bought a posi-track rear end(drum to drum) and got rid of the limited slip.Works alot better and it cost me $2500. to buy it and I put it in.no problems since.