I have a '99 F250SD 4x4 (5.4L 4R100 tranny & supposedly the best transfercase) that I bought 10 months ago. The truck had only 28K miles on it when I bought it (currently 47.5K). Last summer while towing a 20' camper the truck suddenly made a "whiring" noise followed by a "bang" and lost forwad momentum. To make a long story short, the transfercase went out. The guy at Aamco said this has been a common problem. Well, $1500 later they put in a rebuilt unit that was modified to prevent this issue from re-occuring. Three weeks ago (and 11K miles later) I started getting REALLY nasty noises in 4wd. After taking it to my local garage found that there was no fluid in the transfercase. Filled it with fuild, back to Aamco. They replaced the transfercase, again (under warranty). Seems that a seal went out and all the fulid got pumped into the main transmission.

Well today, 500 miles after the last repair, I'm back to square one. While driving down the road (with no load) the original cinario was repeated. So, now the truck is sitting 30 miles from home dead in the water, again.

Is this a known issue with these trucks? I love the truck overall. Its the 4th Ford PU that I've had in the last 20 years. But I can't keep going through this crap. I bought the truck to tow my small camper and with the possible future use of hauling a trailer with my antique truck on it. Far within the expected uses of a truck this big. But I'm getting leary of using it for day to day driving let alone what I really bought it for.

If anyone has any ideas on what is causing this repeated problem or what I can do to fix it once and for all so I can finally enjoy my truck, please let me know

Mike

 

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you've got the Borg warner 1356? if so thats weird because it's usually a pretty tough t-case in my experience.
did it pump the fliud back into the tranny again?

 

If the same problem keeps happening with all these different transfer cases, and it involves pumping oil into the transmission, maybe the problem is in the transmission tailhousing instead of in the transfer case? Might be something to look into.

I thought the '99-up trucks were using the New Venture transfer cases? I think the NV271 manual shift and the NV273 (or some number like that) electric shift are the ones used in the diesel and V10 trucks. Not sure about the 5.4L trucks.

 

Well, they came and hauled my F250 to the shop today. Luckily they are sending the towing bill to the shop that did the transfercase rebuild (was a 113 mi haul). In talking to the shop my truck does have the B/W xfer case in it. The issue is with regard to the shift mechanism in the box (this is the manual shift version). Something goes awry with the shift fork and it basically puts the case in neuteral. This the same issue that I had back in July. He said that this time they are going to put in a new xfer case that has supposedly been re-designed to eliminate this problem. Time will tell....... I sure hope it does.

Mike

 

Alot of the online parts sites like fordparts.com have them for between $700 and $1300 depending on the model and tranny. Seems like the prices have gone up a bit. Looks like $719 or $840 depending on ESOF or not.

It's a pain, but not the worst swap if you do it yourself. ESOF is easier.

Eric

 

This is being done under warranty. I got a 12K mi/12 month warranty when I had the xfer case replaced in July. I had put just over 10K mi on it when it died in early Jan '05 and only 500 mi on it this last time. I'm hopeful that this will be the last time.......

Mike