I have a 95 F-150 351 with the ESOF and i was playing in the sand on the beach a little bit, mostly marveling at the limited slip, in and outof 4 wheel drive (always 4 hi, never usd 4 low). On the drive home, there was a clicking noise coming from the right hub that was in sequence with the speed of the truck. there I am surmising that this was coming from the hub. When i got back home, i rolled around the neighborhood, and put the truck back in 4 hi and rolled forward, and then reversed in a circle both directions. When i took the truck out of 4 hi, the clicking was gone. I don't 4x4 a lot, and i take the philosophy "2 wheel drive till you get stuck, 4 wheel drive to get home" so i dont know a whole lot about the 4x4 system on the truck. BUT, my theory is that the truck was really bound up from messing around in the sand, maybe a tight turn or something, that was pushing the hub teeth closer together so that they were grinding slightly when rolling down the road when it was disengaged. Any ideas? Since the clicking has gone away, (i haven't driven it since) I'm not that worried right now. Should I be? Thanks, and one more question, if the rear axle is 3.55 LS is the front axle also LS?

 

Wouldnt that be nice! but no thats not the case.


the auto hubs suck. After disengaging the 4wd you need to reverse to unlock them. If you just keep going forward they will stay locked.
Spend the $100 and put some manual locking hubs in. That way you know when they are unlocked, and it will save the front u joints in the axles, the wheel bearings and pinion bearing that will all get prematurely worn if your auto hubs 'stick'.
Also with manuals once you hit the dirt just lock em in, you dont have to be in 4wd, just unlock em on the pavement. If you get stuck with autos that were supposed to be locked but didnt, you cant drive forwards to engage them which will leave you royally screwed and stuck in 2wd.

 

Auto hubs are hard on the front end anyways...ever notice how dodg'es straightexles are always locked in and the action of you locking the t-case into 4 hi is what locks the truck in?easier on the drivetrain that way....It's not quite 100 bucks for the manual hubs......unless you wannago high dollar....and it ain't difficult to convert them either.....pud's right...the front end of your truck probly didn't unlock all the way...no biggy...and yea...it would be nice to get a posi front and year...I got a wrecked 93 bronco that had 3.55's and LS front and rear...the rear is now in m 95 f-150 from when I upgraded from 3.31 gears.......he's also right saying...if your playin around...before you hit the dirt..lock in the hubs but not the t-case.......won't hurt nothin and if it happens to be fender deepin mud or water..you'r not gettin too dirty.....

 

yeah, i can see where that makes sense with having to reverse to disengage the hubs. I never really thought about it, nor have i had to do it before. manual hubs are something i have been thinking about, so we'll see.

so there are no problems with an electronic transfer case and manual hubs? i was kinda afraid the elecronic t-case wouldn't like engaging the front drive train with hubs already engaged, similar to what happens with a pure manual 4x4 system when you are stationary, and the teeth just dont line up and you cant get the t-case into gear. (like the way my dad's 85 used to do... you would just roll forward or backward to get the t-case into gear). Or is there a synchronizer like in a manual transmission that prevents this misalignment?

I understand what you guys are saying and its great advice, but i'm still curious on the inner workings or the system, if you know, to gain a better understanding for all of it. thanks a lot!

 

I had issues with my automatic 4x4 and switched to Borg-Warner lockouts about 10 years ago. Helped the fuel mileage too. Sounds like it might be getting time for universals in the front axle soon to me.

 

Think of the hubs and the transfer case as two separate things with manual hubs. You can have the hubs locked, but the t-case in 2H. When you need it, you can just hit the button and be in 4H. You don't even have to stop to engage it. Getting it back into 2H is easy - just hit the button. No stopping or direction change required. For this reason alone, manual hubs are far better than auto hubs. When you factor in that auto hubs are very failure-prone (and always at the worst time), making the change to manual hubs is a no-brainer.

Of course, there's a downside to everything. You have to get out of the truck to engage them - big deal. If I'm going to be offroading for the weekend, I'll just lock them in and unlock when I leave for the weekend. Having the truck in 2H with the hubs locked is no big deal - it just uses a little bit more gas. There's no question whether a manual hub it locked in, either.

Have I sold you yet?

 

I'm with everyone else buddy, manual hubs are the way to go. Hopefully you aren't having that "I'll use them 'til they break" mentality, because thats what I did with my auto hubs and when they broke, I WAS IN A SNOWSTORM! Cost me over $500 in tow fees and tire chains. Think about it, they are only going to break when you are using them, and if you are using them, YOU NEED THEM!! Unfortunately, I hadn't come to that conclusion when I decided to keep them for a while...

Let me clarify the way the hubs work. They ARE NOT electronic. The hubs work through centrifugal force. When you engage your 4wd the front axle shafts start to spin and when this happens the mechanism in the hub knows to engage and bit the spindle, thus locking your wheels to the front axle, when the axle shaft stops spinning, the hubs let go (in theory). The problem is, if you change direction too fast from forward-to-reverse or vice versa, then hubs will DISENGAGE and REENGAGE very quickly. The is one of the most common reasons for failure in the centrifugal type auto hubs, and this is what happened to me when I was trying to get unstuck from a snow bank.

Swap em to manuals, you will be SO happy you did. I hated that feeling whenever I put it into 4wd of "are my hubs really locked?", with the manuals you can KNOW IT. I just used mine the other day in the sand and it worked fantastic.

So no, there is nothing electronic about the auto hubs and thus manuals will not conflict with the electronic push-button 4wd (I have the push button and it works great).

 

You have definately sold me on the manual hubs. Does anyone have the name of the kit, or suggestions from what they did? that would be appreciated.

I understand now how the electronic hubs work, the idea of centripetal force makes sense, but i can see the short comings and possible failure modes. My dad has a 98 silverado, i dont want to make people upset talking about gm, but he doesn't have hubs, just the manual t-case shift lever. Does this mean that the front drive train up to the t-case is always engaged so that it is rotating when the vehicle is rotating? That sounds like what happens when you engage these manual hubs we are talking about. So everything is rotating in the front, but power is applied only when the t-case is engaged. If this is true for the silverado, i can see the improvement in turn radius from the cv joints, but that seems like a lot rotational inertia and frictional drag to overcome just rolling down the highway in 2 wd.

starting to think out loud now mostly, no reply is necessary, thanks for the help with the hubs.

 

Warn and Mile Marker make quality hubs, there are others out there but those are probably the 2 biggest ones. I bought Warn Premiums for a little extra because they are made with more metal parts and they really weren't that much more expensive. I'm very satisfied with my Warn hubs. Fun fact, Ford's stock manual hubs are manufactured by Warn, coincidence?

Remember you'll also need to buy the conversation kit to convert auto to manual, Warn also sells these.

Warn Standard Manual Hub Kit - Part# 9790 on their website
Warn Premium Manual Hub Kit - Part# 20990 on their website
Warn Manual Hub Spindle Nut Kit (Conversion Kit) - Part# 32720 on their website

Aside from some regular old tools that's all you need for the swap, it's SUPER simple. You should be able to get these kits at most 4x4 shops, I purchased mine hubs and spindle nut kit at Central 4wd. Good luck buddy.

ON EDIT: Here's a good chart if you want to double check my numbers:
http://www.warn.com/truck/hubs/application_chart.shtml