I have a 2005 F150 4x4 with automatic hubs. My question is.... Can I put manual hub locks on? That's right I want the good old fashioned mechanical lock that you have to get out and turn, but I want to know if they can be put on the newer trucks or if anyone has done this already and has any input.

 

No you can't, due to the design and the fact no one makes them.

 

I have found that they are made for our trucks. If you go to www.autopartswarehouse.com and do the search by vehicle it shows that Mile Marker and Warn make them for our year model. If they make them for our truck, then I'm assuming that they can be put on our truck, but I want to know if anyone has any experience with them. BTW I dont have the ESOF, i have the good old manual shift on the fly, my truck is an xl with the 5.4 and 4x4.

 

If you look at those, they state that they are universal for a Dana 60 application. You do not have a Dana 60.

PS, if you put in a Ranger, you get the exact same hubs listed.

 

If you want to manually lock your hubs, just pull the vacumm source under the hood going into the IWE solenoid and plug it so you don't have a vac leak. The default position is locked and vac is used to unlock the hubs, by removing the vac, the hubs will stay locked.

 

And will be destroyed fairly quickly while in 2wd.

 

Highly unlikely, the front diff is open and the front driveshaft is not locked in until the x-fer case is put into 4hi.

 

I'd have to agree kingfish. Just turn the 4x4 on in dry pavement and you'll see real quick you don't want to have them locked all the time. Even with the 4x4 not engaged and the vacuum removed it will still wear out extremely fast. You can feel this also when you do down a long incline with the truck shut off coasting in neutral. That's just my opinion and so I wouldn't do it.

 

Do a search in the 2004-2008 forum for grinding while in 2wd. The IWE's destroy themselves if locked and in 2wd.

 

I wouldn't do it either, but it's about the only way to manually lock the hubs w/o doing a full straight axle conversion.

My truck is a street queen so I don't use 4x4 often, but when I do the only time it binds is during tight turns.

 

What your thinking about is when the iwe solenoid goes bad and the hubs try to self engage. When that happens there is a weak vac and the spring inside the hub overcomes vac pressure and the splines come into close enough contact to grind against each other, eventually they will chew each other up destroying the hub. If you remove vac completely the hubs will fully engage and the grind will not happen.

 

kingfish the ones i looked at stated they were for a ford 8.8 not a dana 60.

 

The hubs have a default position of engaged with vacuum off. The solenoid sends vacuum to the hubs when in 2wd, not 4wd. 4wd position is no vacuum.

sgtgixxer, as far as the hubs, could you put up a url as when I looked at the hubs, the only ones listed were universal hubs.

 

I know that, reread the bold portion of my earlier post.

 

And the reason you get the grinding noise is that they are locked while in 2wd. After a while, this grinding destroys the gears in the IWE. Note that when people have the grinding noise and put it in 4wd, it goes away.
Having the vehicle in 2wd with the hubs locked will destroy them.