I've got an 04 F150 with 160,000 on the clock, I know a lot of miles but hey it runs good for the most part.. Anyway at times I have this grinding noise, it comes and goes, and its only when I'm moving. The weird part is the truck drives and stops fine, I have crawled under neath it and can't really find anything, nothing leaking and nothing that looks like it shouldn't be there. I have checked the wheel bearings and they seem fine. Also wiggled the driveshafts and they seem tight. I did recently change my Transfer case fluid, I used Motorcraft Mercon 5 I think is what its called. They said that they no longer make just mercon which is what I think it called for. Did I mess up my T-case?

May be your iwe's, that sounds like the symptoms of them, search iwe and you can read some info on them

So it looks like, if I'm hearing the noise find someplace I can slow down, and throw it in 4 high to see if the noise stops? and if the noise does stop then it is most likely my IWE? How many are there? 2? and are they a pain to change out?

95y "I'll just drive the jeep to work tommrrow" jman

ok wait, from what I read, am I just changing a sensor or am I tearing into the front end and pulling front axle shafts? I need to get a Factory service manual the haynes has nothing about this in it. Is just changing some soliend's gonna suck? or pulling the axleshafts and all that jazz gonna suck? both gonna suck? heh

Not sure what you are reading but there is a lot of stuff on the IWE in our Articles and How To section. Look under Suspension and Steering. If that is what you've been reading, I apologize.

https://www.f150online.com/forums/ar...-articles.html

well I guess what I don't understand is do I need to just replace the Solenoid? or am I going to have to rip apart the front end and fix stuff there also?

The solenoid is the root of the problem, so that will have to be changed no matter what. After you change the solenoid if the noise is still there, then you may have to change the IWE on one or both sides.

Well changed the solenoid today and I drove it around for about 45 minutes and it didn't make any noise, so hopefully I got it fixed...