I have a 99 F150 4x4 S-Cab Lariat with the 5.4. It has over 110,000. The front end, minus shocks, rotors, pads and tires, is stock. When I drive I get a sound from the front end. It's one of those that when I try to imitate it, people look at we funny. It's like skoosh, skoosh, skoosh....It's speed variable of course. I am pretty sure it's always there, but I don't always here it due to tire noise, exhaust, radio...etc. The brakes aren't rubbing. The cv boots look good and I've greased all of the zerks and the front differential gets it's fluid changed regularly. I haven't noticed any driveability issues, but I don't want something to break when I'm miles from nowhere. Any input on what this could be?

The only thing I can think of would be cv joints. From the service manuals, they look like a total terror to replace (not to mention the cost...)

Thanks.

Doug

 

Sounds almost like a bearing assembly to me. Jack up the front of the truck till the wheels are off the ground. Go to the offending side and then wiggle the tire in and out to see if there is any bearing play. Also you can pull off the wheel, caliper, and rotor so you can see the bearing seal area to see if any grease has leaked out. You can't rebuild these since they are a sealed unit. I got mine through Jockos back home (any parts store can get them) and they're about $200 each.

 

After I typed that I thought about bearings too. I knew they weren't cheap either and of course they are non-service-able.

Is it the same to look on a 4x4?

THanks.

Doug

 

I was describing how to check a 4x4 since thats what you have. The 2wd is different and doesn't use a sealed bearing assembly like the 4wd.

 

If I figure out it is this by your method, what does this do for me? I have to look at the service manual to see how bad this is. Is this something I can probably do myself or is it more involved than that? What if I don't fix it, what are the ramifications then? Will I destroy tie-rod ends, shocks, etc?

 

If you don't fix this, then you'll sieze up the bearing when you run it dry. You should get the idea what would happen if a wheel bearing siezes while you're going down the interstate. Its not pretty. If you find play in the bearing then its bad. To check just grab the top and bottom of the tire and as you pull in on the top push in on the bottom and then reverse this. Wiggle the tire like that. You should have very little play. If you do then it could be either the bearing or the ball joints. Take off the tire and then try and wiggle the bearing assembly the same way. If you see just that move then theres your problem. If the bearing moves as well as the rotor, caliper, and knuckle then its probably ball joints. Since you said it changes with speed then its probably not ball joints. You can also look for grease leaking out around the seals on the bearing assembly. Another thing you can do to check is to take a length of flexible hose like garden hose and with one end to your ear hold the other end to the bearing assembly and then spin the wheel. This acts like a stethescope and will let you hear the bearing. It should be 100% smooth. If it is kind of rough sounding then its on its way out. Its simple to change it though. The 1st time I did it, it took 45. This included dinking around trying to figure out how to do it and cranking my torsion bars at the same time. The 2nd time I did it, it only took 20 min, and this was using a hilift jack along side the road with only 1/2 the tools I needed to do the job.

Heres how you do it:
Take off your wheel. Take off the dust cap from the king nut. Pull the pin from the nut and then take off the nut (Its big but not sure what size). The last time doing it along side the road I was able to get it off with a pair of vise grips, but if you can get a socket big enough (will be 3/4" drive) use that. Take off the 2 bolts that hold on the caliper and hang it up out of the way. After that is off try pulling on your rotor to see if that will come off. On mine the rotor wouldn't separate from the bearing assembly, so I had to take the 2 off separately. Look behind the bearing assembly and you will see 3 bolts that thread into the knuckle. Take those 3 out. If you have 4wheel ABS you will have a wire that comes out of the hub. Go under the hood on top of the inner fender and disconnect the plug. Then go back down on the wire in the wheel well. You will see where its clipped to the suspension. There is a bolt holding it on. Remove the bolt. Then slide the bearing assembly off (at this point the rotor was still on my assembly but it comes off the same. When you're pulling this off make sure you keep pushing the splined CV shaft in so you don't over-extend the shaft. Also make sure you don't push it in too far so you compress it too far. Basically try to keep the CV in the same position as you pull this off. If you couldn't get the rotor off earlier take 2 pieces of 2x4 and lay them parallel to each other. Then lay the rotor/bearing assembly on them so that the boards are touching the rotor but not the bearing. Then take a hammer and hit the bearing and it should pop out of the rotor. It took a couple good hits to get mine separated, but the rotor had never been off before. Since you said yours had been replaced yours SHOULD come off a little easier. Once you have all this done installation is the reverse of this. Just make sure you torque down the kind nut that goes on the threaded/splines CV shaft. I don't have the torque specs, but they are in the Chiltons manual. Also if you get that, they have step by step directions to do this too.


Simple huh.