94 Explorer Auto-Locking Hubs

[Chad Gartly]

I have a 1994 Ford Explorer with approx 180,000KM's on it presently, I am
having some difficulty with my auto-locking hubs, in normal driving
situations they seem to work fine, although they do make quite a bang when
going between drive and reverse, even when done really slowly and gently. I
was off 4x4ing on some snow covered hills and decided to try and take a run
up one of them, I sped up to around 20 - 30 km/h to approach the hill
(fairly smooth but steep) and half way up the hill I heard a bang and a
whirring/ratcheting sound from the front hub's, I immediately lost 4 wheel
drive as though the hubs were unlocked and had to slide down the hill
backwards, not fun.

I assumed the problem may have been fluke so I tried the same sort of thing
again on a smaller hill and it seems whenever I get a load on the front
wheels the hubs will come unlocked.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? Could this be due to too much
grease in the hubs or warn parts? Is there a rebuild kit available for the
Automatic hubs? or do they have to be replaced with a Ford complete hub or
converted to Manual hubs? I obviously would prefer to spend as little money
as possible.

One thing to note I had the front hubs/bearings apart a couple months ago
and according to my hayne's manual there is supposed to be plastic thrust
spacers, however there were none on my explorer, I don't know if the problem
was there prior to my repacking bearings and doing the brake job.

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

Chad

[---Dan'l]

Chad,
I just went through the summer chasing answers to the same questions you
asked. I went through a few dealers, the NG's, local mechanics, ect, and ended
up changing to manual hubs. Don't be too discouraged yet. Here is what I
found.

There should be very, very MINIMAL grease in the hub. Someone had packed my
Hubs FULL and I feel this contributed to failure, but I can't prove it??? No
space for the mechanism to move I guess? Anyway, wash out the hubs and put
some grease on the spline as to keep it only protected from the elements.
Check and see if the alloy, three legged, Hub piece slides off and on (in and
out) of the piece it mates too. I feel this should be a clean and free
mating. Check for marred corners of teeth, ect. and think about some creative
filing if the area looks in need. Cross fingers and test you FWD again. Good
luck.

re: spacers. After having (again) this very same question, I ended up buying
the spacers only to find out that they will not fit over the bearing nut
shoulder in my version of FWD. My conclusion is that there is more than one
type of FWD config. for the 1994 Explorer.???

Once again, Good Luck and keep us posted
daniel

[MBOPP0153]

Last I knew there were no parts available for autolocking hubs, only new units
from Ford at $260 each. Two Warn manual hubs were app. $120.

Mike

[bigski70]

I had one go bad on my 94 last year followed by the other shortly after
replacing the first. If you want to keep the price down go with the Warn
manual hub conversion.

"Chad Gartly" <cga...@home.com> wrote in message
news:CFeO7.11468$%B6.36...@news2.rdc1.bc.home.com...