I fixed my bad Vacuum line after the IWE was grinding and causing all kinds of racket for several hundred miles and now there is no noise at all. Still goes in and out of 4x4 just fine, just used it on the beach yesterday.

 

I thought mine was the solenoid at first but that didnt fix the problem either. I had good suction from the vacuum hoses so i said hmm? I went with the cheaper part and ordered an IWE actuator. Put it on the driver side because thats where i thought the noise was coming from so i replaced it. Took it for a test drive and still noise. So i called tasca parts and they said it could go on either said. I then took it off the driver side and replaced it with the old one. Went back to the passenger side and took that one off and put the new one on. There was my problem and all the grinding noise went away. Sometimes the noise may seem to come from the left but in reality come from the right side. Take them apart and clean them really good. Then re grease em and throw them back on there. That could help as loose dirt and grime can collect in there causing your actuators to bind up inside your hub.

 

Not always. Like in my post above it was my IWE Actuator not my whole hub assembly. Start by taking apart the truck and looking at the actuator itself and go from there.




Your talking about the IWE Actuator. Lets not confuse some of the newer guys lol. Now i even contacted my Ford stealership while my truck was in the shop. I called them about replacing just my IWE Actuator but they told me they dont know what that part is and what they were going to replace was the hub assembly. I told them forget about it and i then went online to tascaparts.com and ordered the IWE Actuator which solved my problem. When they come in the mail they are already greased which you dont have to worry about doing. But if you want to clean it up some more on the inside of the hub then buy some grease.

4 Parts that can cause this weird grinding noise starting with most likely to least:

IWE Solenoid
Vacuum Lines
IWE Actuator
Hub Assembly

Heres a great Write Up on this IWE Solenoid/Actuator replacement

https://www.f150online.com/forums/ar...replacing.html

 

WOW this place is a life saver so glad I found this.

I have same issue of grinding/squeeling and when I switch to 4wd it goes away.

It sounded like it was coming from passenger side I removed the Vac hoses on that wheel and plugged and put small peice of hose on actuator and plugged. the grinding was gone.

So now i know i need to replace that side actuator but my question now is this ok for now until i get it fixed? Im figuring that the assembly is now engaged and spinning BUT no power is being put to it so there wont be no harm done, can anyone confirm this for me?