all the sudden, out of the blue today, my spedometer starts flying off the wall. the needle just keeps going back and fouth a million miles an hour. also my breaks wanted to lock up every time id come to a stop. the ABS and break light came on so i pulled over, topped the break fluid off (was a LITTLE low) and the lights went off. the breaks continued to lock. i took the truck to the ford dealer for service but of course they closed a half hour earlier. so while going to leave the parking lot, i gassed it to get out and this HORRIBLE grinding noise came from god knows where (i think somewhere up front) and the truck did not want to roll forward. sooo i got it towed to a shop but they dont have time to look at it til monday. while it was being pulled into the shop it made the grinding noise again and the mechanic said without really looking at anything, his guess would be that the rear end was on its way out from what he could hear but couldnt know for sure til an inspection was done.
also while being pulled in to the shop, a front break line was punctured and all the break fluid spewed out everywhere.
does anyone have ANY idea what in the hell is going on here?! this truck is the truck from HELL today...i can say one thing for sure. i am NOT putting 1000s of dollars into this truck to fix it.

 

Easy! It's the rear end. I'm guessing by the name, it's a 94, which has an Excitor Ring in the rear end that controls the rear ABS as well as the speedo. I would also imagine that your truck has a Traction Lock in it, which alot of times gums up the VSS sensor(top of the pumpkin on the rear end) and in some cases shears off the ears of the frictions. Seeing that you heard grinding noises and such I would imagine the spider gears or side gears in the diff are shot. So it's probably a new rear diff for ya.

 

hmm well that makes sense then! all the problems coming from the rear. well AWESOME. how much you think thatll run me?

 

oh and i also have to quickly add that there is no noise in reverse and it just rolls backwards fine...does this still make sense?

 

I'm thinking your 4WABS (4 Wheel Antilock Brake System) controller just went out. When they go out, the signal to the PSOM that controls the speedometer, which comes from the rear end housing to the 4WABS controller then to the PSOM, causes the speedometer to go crazy. Also, when the 4WABS controller goes bad, the brakes lock up. I know, nifty little fail-safe. The grinding you may have heard probably came from the brake shoes dragging as the vehicle was being moved.

As far as costs go, the 4WABS controller is about $50 to $100. It should be relatively easy to replace; much easier than rebuilding a rearend.

Hopefully, this gets you back on the road with minimal pain.

 

bell tire actually told me the same thing you just said. wouldnt that be great if thats all it was. there was also a whining noise upon acceleration. jeeze, i keep thinking of more things that went wrong!
i mean, i get a full service on my truck every 3 months, and NEVER beat it up-always babied. it just doesnt seem logical for the rear end to go...

 

Except for the fact that 94's don't have 4 wheel ABS... It's the rear diff...

 

aww rained on my parade...lol
oh well. looking at around 1200 then right?

 

If you have a dealer or someone do it, probably.. If you do it yourself, your looking at 100-150ish. That's the cost of a motorsport Trac-lok rebuild kit(like 60ish last time I did one), and spider gears(like 60ish last time I did them in my lightning). Plus fluid.

It's a pretty easy job. Jack up the truck, remove tires, remove brake drums, remove diff cover, remove pinch bolt, remove center pin, push in rear axles, remove clips, remove both rear axles, remove 4 bolts holding the diff in..and then it's pretty straight forward

 

google says the 94s do have 4wabs ???

 

'94s have 4 wheel ABS from the factory. Google is correct, as is the shop. Should be a relatively easy and not to expensive fix.

 

yeah bad news. shop called today, rear diff is totally ground up inside- $1500.

 

Would be a lot cheaper to get a whole axle out of a boneyard.

 

Would imagine that you could prolly find one for 200...

1500 for it? must of ate everythang out of it...

Prices from Accu Auto parts...
http://www.accuautoparts.com/list1.jsp

R&P 3.55............. 133
Master Rebuild....... 92
Carrier posi unit.... 171
Total.................. 395

Thats all i could imagine it messed up? i mean fluid should be 10 bucks the Carrier is Posi and Complete so 1000 to do the repair?

 

dont forget, shops are tricky. i worked for one for 10 years. ~30% markup on parts, cleaning supplies, shop rags, etc. your paying for all of that too.