1998 F150 4x4 4.6L 180,000 miles

Well no good dead goes unpunished! On my way home from work I came up to some kids that took a S turn to fast and had there car stuck in the ditch and mud. (rainy/ windy tonight) So I stopped and helped. As I went to put the truck in 4 wheel drive it was a real hard shift (automatic-trans, On the floor 4x4 shifter) As I pulled back something just seamed like it was to hard to engage. So I pulled up a few feet put the truck in neutral a figure I go all the way to 4 low. It went in to 4Hi or in to Neutral but I could not go down to 4 low. I put it in 4 Hi and pulled the kid out and pushed the shifter back to 2 and off I went (on 40mph road for about 2 miles) stop to get my kids at daycare and tried to back up to release the hubs and the truck went back about 5' and then made some bad sounds, moved the shifter around, in and out of 2, 4HI and N and finally got it down to 4LOW once and then put it back to 2. Drove home thinking it was good. (About 2 more miles) As I tried backing in the drive there was a clunk and a almost dragging metal sound. and felt like something was binding. Gave the kids to the wife and tried playing with it some more.

Pulled out for the drive and now it was binding going forward and then after sitting there just idling in drive the engine want to die put the trans in Neutral or Park and it was fine. after about 10 min the Overdrive Light start flashing and the check engine light came on. I was able to drive slowly forward but it sound like metal on metal in the case. I did slowly get better but not right by any means I was able to back in to the drive.

In the past 2 months the truck has become a money pit. I guess not bad for the age and miles but all a once sucks. New tires, upper and lower ball joints, tie rod ends, rear leaf spring shackle bracket, blown rear break line and the dam recalled gas tank.
I can turn wrenches and change parts but when it get in to this stuff I not the best.

Any ideas, I did look through the forum first and found more questions than answers.

Anyway to over ride the in cab shifter?
Did I bend the shifter and is that why I having problems?
Thoughts or Ideas?????????????

 

If the OD light was flashing and the CEL came on, you have stored codes. A cheap OBD2 scanner will read the engine codes but not the tranny codes, and you have both.

 

Correct, I am guessing that the flashing OD light is saying that the tranny is over heating, guess I'm sending it to the shop for this one.

 

Well it looks like Powertrain Control Module (PCM) may have went out. And its putting the truck in second all the time. The stuck 4wd leaver might just be a fluke thing, they are still checking won't know more till Monday...

 

Well changed the bad PCM, and I'm back to square one. So we did more investigating and dropped the pan on the tranny and found lots of chunks of metal. Oh yeah, just the news I want to hear. Not sure why yet the Truck has 174,000 mi, but I put and new tranny in back at 96,000 mi. So now I questioning if the transfer case is good or not too. I had NO indication of a bad tranny until putting the truck in 4wd the other day. I dont get it, the tranfer case should have nothing to do with the inners of the tranny.

The thing that really suck is I have racked up a bill of, I sure close to 500 right now and just got the truck out of the shop twice in the past 3 months at 400 and 500 each time back in August I put new ball joints and front end bushing on for 200 and new tires for 700. So in the last 4 months I have put close to 1800 plus what I will be paying as of now at the shop, that is about 500 making my total for a non-working truck 2300. WTF

Is it worth it to put more in the truck or start parting it? Is it even worth the time in parts, I assume the engine is the most valuable thing there but that has 174,000 miles on it.