Has anyone tried to put a little air pressure in the IWE to make a secure lock, I think most of the damage is caused by the hubs not being fully locked, a few psi of pressure would insure they are locked

 

I just had the horrid grinding noise,and had to limp home slowly,did some research and i replaced the solenoid,and the grinding went away but now it wont engage into 4h or 4l,not sure what the issue could be. does anybody possibly know what could be the problem?

 

Can anyone help , I have clunk grinding noise 2H only from dead stop when I hit gas its coming from both front wheels and only from stop when accelerating , there is no noise when 4H , so far I visually inspected vacum lines and replace solenoid . I read here when you disconect vacum line at check valve the noise should be gone in 2H but it's still there , any help?

 

ok i jacked up the truck and spun the front wheels with truck off and only the passenger side half shaft spins with the wheel. meaning with no vacum the iwe on that side engaged like its sposed to. while the passenger side does not engage with or without truck running and i can kind of hear a slight grinding noise on drivewrs side when spinning wheel backwards

so i figure the iwe is shot on drivers side.

now according to youtbe theres 2 ways to remove half shaft and replace iwe.

1. remove wheel, strut bolt on bottom and tie rod ends and pull hub off the half shaft, the replace iwe and reverse process
- but does this require a wheel alignment after?

2. remove bottom bolt on strut , pry strut out of way , remove 6 bolts from inner half flange and remove half shaft from hub
- doesnt require a wheel alignment but im finding it impossible to loosen lower strut bolt so far?

what to do?

also for more reliability, should i just replace both sides iwe once i figure out how to break loose the 25 mm bolt/nut?

 

I just did this over the weekend. I bought two dorman actuators from Amazon and they came to my house in two days. It came to $116 for the pair including shipping.

I took out the lower strut bolt and moved the strut out of the way. The lower bolt is hard to get out like you said. It is easier to work get the bolt out with the tire off since its not hindering you. I used a breaker bar and a cheater pipe on it to free it up. After that I spun it out with an impact. I also found that removing the skid plate off the front makes it easy to remove the entire CV shaft from the truck. It will slide right out and under where the skid plate used to be. Only 4 bolts to take out to get the skid plate off. I could then clean the CV shaft and inspect it before putting it back in.

I replaced both actuators at the same time. I have seen some people say that it takes anywhere from 45 to 60 minutes per actuator. That was not the case for me. I had probably about 4 hours into drivers side and an hour and a half into passenger side (2nd one was easier once I figured it out).

The issuse I had was that my drivers side actuator literally blew up. The mounting tabs on it were broke off, meaning it was sticking out about a 1/4in from the spindle. That meant it couldnt disengage because it had nothing to pull iteself out with. The passenger side had the opposite problem, it was locked into the disengaged position. I would replace both while you are at it for this reason. I dont drive my truck much and havent used the 4x4 since last winter. It appears that when one goes the other will probably follow shortly.

 

Ok I'm having a problem with my 4x4 not engaging. Why would be some reasons for that? Clogged vent tube maybe?

 

Sorry no one answered this question and I was wondering this also

 

I posted this in another thread but this is probably a better place.

A couple of years ago, I started getting a "hissing" noise from the driver's side, in 2WD, 4th gear, converter lock, and usually at a slight incline. Any change to engine RPM and the "hissing" went away. Still under warranty, so Ford replaced the driver's side IWE and it went away. Now it's happening on the passenger side. There's a description earlier in this thread of the noise as being like dragging metal strapping, which is perfect. It was never the ratcheting sound others describe.

So I just had the passenger IWE replaced and it's still "hissing". Not as bad, but still there. Since the line from the solenoid (I have the new one) hits a "T" and then goes to both IWE's, if it was the solenoid or a check valve it should be affecting both IWE's, correct?

Any thoughts?

 

Are any specialty tools required for removing or assembling the actuator?

 

I tried the strut removal method, but found that my strut/spring (2004 FX4) was still too compressed to allow the bolt to be removed easily ( and impossible to get back in). So I ended up disconnecting the top knuckle, etc and following the factory directions.

 

thanks for the awesome info!! this really helps

 

I am having the grinding noise on my 2010 4x4 from time to time. Hoping that its a check valve but I will do all the tests this weekend. Does anyone have the part numbers for the 4wd IWE system; Check valves, solenoid, IWE actuators?

 

http://www.tascaparts.com/ford/f-150..._name=actuator

http://www.tascaparts.com/ford/f-150..._name=solenoid

No idea on the check valves, call the Tasca rep.

 

My truck only makes the grinding sound when its cold. How does a vacuum leak that's causing the IWE system to malfunction have anything to do with temperature of the engine? I don't see the relationship. Once my truck warms up the grinding sound goes away. Someone please explain.

 

How cold is cold? If it's below freezing then it could be water that has gotten into the IWE and frozen. Once the hubs start moving it would obviously melt the ice and allow for the IWE to retract. Just a thought..