Hey I'm new to the site so forgive me if I'm in the wrong place, I read around online and the only person with an issue close to mine changed the transfer case.

I have a 2006 f150 4x4 electric shift not TOD.
When I put the truck in 4x4 it engages and the light comes on, same with 4 low I can feel the gearing change. But if I give the truck more than about 1k rpm the 4x4 kicks out spinning and i can hear like a ticking or tapping from directly under the truck. Now the really weird part is this doesn't happen in reverse or if it does nowhere near as bad. If i get stuck going forward I can always reverse out.

So I got a spare transfer case out of an 05 parts truck and tore it down to check everything was good and see how it works. I noticed on the splines for the hubs that slide together to engage 4x4 are slightly chipped on just the forward drive side and this is on the good transfer case. I'm wondering if maybe mine are all stripped on the forward side but not reverse? Well I'll be pulling my transfer case probably this weekend to look.

Another quick question, on the shift cam that moves the shift forks. The locating pin opposite of the shift motor is broken off. Is this just for building the case or should it be there? I ordered a new one from the dealer should be in soon.

Sorry about the long post, thanks for any help!

 

I forgot to mention that I checked the front IWE's by turning them by hand in 2wd and they don't in 4x4 and with the truck off. I checked the check valves and even unplugged the IWE's from the solenoid.

I also had someone spin the tires and I could see the front driveshaft wasn't spinning.

 

This is the hub off of my good transfer case and you can see the slight chipped teeth

 

This is the hub off of my truck that kicks out, as you can see the teeth are missing almost double, I forgot to measure with calipers but it's much more noticeable in person. But would that be enough to cause it to skipping under high load?

 

That might be the problem. From what I recall, someone else had this same problem on here a couple years ago, and I'm not sure if they isolated it or not. I can't find it.

However, I did fine this:

https://www.f150forum.com/f4/2005-4x...215596/index4/

But there are no concrete answers, unfortunately.

Wish I could help you... hopefully someone will chime in.

 

Thanks for the link, I read through and yea it sounds identical to my problem. I've found a cpl people who had the problem but like you said none of the ones I read had found the root of the problem.

I forgot to get a picture of the other hub that engages to that one but it shows the same thing. The only thing I can think is with enough load the teeth skip because of how much play there is. If you rotate the case by hand you cant get it to skip so without inspecting everything it does seem like it all works if one didn't notice it.

So I changed out the hubs from the other transfer case and put mine back together with the better hubs to see if there is a change, would be awesome to see this problem resolved.

But I'm in the middle of rebuilding the rear end so it'll be a day before I can say if there's a change.

 

Well I got my diff back together and took her for a small 10 minute drive so I don't want to jinx myself because I didnt want to accelerate to much with the new rear end in. But i went up to 2k rpms and did not lose 4x4 at all. I think this may have fixed the problem but I will update after a few hundred km when the gears are broke in.

 

Good to know. I'm interested!

 

Well I'm pretty confident this was the problem and it's fixed, all I did was change the 2 4x4 engagement hubs for the 2 in better shape nothing else, everything other than those 2 hubs were reused and my 4x4 is working flawlessly.

I drove around town in 4x4 accelerating up to about 2500 rpm with no issues or slips. I'll probably see if I can purchase just these hubs new and replace them this summer. These ones I'm as they continue to wear will show the same symptoms. Hopefully this helps someone else who might get this issue.

 

This is something inside the transfer case, not the IWE's?

 

Yes that's correct, the previous owner thought it was a problem with the IWE'S but they work perfect it was the transfer case all along.

I could probably get some better pictures uploaded today as I still have the transfer case and hubs.