Cracked Front Diff Housing

[powerboatr]

It's been unused for years. Previous generation F150's.
Which still points to the current fragile front differential as being inferior in some way.

and i found today it is also UNUSED in expeditions at least form 2015 to current

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[amschind]

Why couldn't they skid plate just mounted to the surface of the differential braces?
Effectively hanging lower by the thickness of the braces mounting plate?

If they both/all use the same mounting bolts, no big deal?

It would require the same slit cut into the skid plate as I had to cut in the oem plate on my 2018 FX4. Admittedly not near as robust as the Talons.

I think that's the one possible solution: just mount the skid plate on a set of standoffs. The only issue I see there is that if you bump the skid plate, you're doing to be concentrating the force onto your frame crossmember onto the surface area of the standoff washers vs across the entire surface area of the crossmember. The front mount points on the Talons engine/front skid plate use an S-curve bracket, and I'm pretty sure that such a part is unavoidable and the most likely part to fail if you actually hit the skid plate on something. I find that a little more acceptable than the potential standoff mount because IF I whack the skid plate on something and bend those two mounting brackets, I just get a new pair of $20 mounting brackets and replace them in 20 minutes. Mashing the bolt holes up into the frame would be a little tougher to fix.

A cutout in the skid plate would work, but at that point the diff bracket is the lowest hanging point on the truck. If that elbow in the bracket hits a rock, the whole bracket will try to torque around the crossmember mount and swing up into the diff housing and exert focused pressure, possibly as a shock load, onto that one point in the diff casting. I think that's an example of "when it's good it's so good, but when it's bad, it's REALLY bad."

 

[kcarter]

Question for all who had a cracked front diff housing...

My 22 Platinum Powerboost just hit 12k miles, and I’ve started noticing a vibration in my gas pedal (and driver floor area) in the past couple of months. Sometimes it feels fine, others its an “oscillating” type of vibration and can get annoying. Happens even with the engine off, coasting in electric around 50mph, so it’s not that.

I’ve felt a similar vibration before when throwing the truck in 4A or 4H, and now it just feels like it’s partially engaged even in 2H. I cycle 4A/4H every once in a while.

Back in December, I pulled the truck into the garage at work and noticed a smallish clear oil puddle under the front of truck. Didn’t match engine oil, but didn’t know what it could be. Definitely oil. No engine lights.

I guess I’m gonna have to crawl under the truck tomorrow and inspect the front diff. But my gut has always been telling me the vibration is somewhere around the front diff. I’ve read through every page of this thread looking to see if there was a correlation...

Any thoughts?

 

[Gooner5643]

For anyone interested, BWoody makes a front diff brace that works with the fx4 skid plate. Installed mine in preparation for when the whipple gets here.

https://www.bwoodyperformance.com/proddetail.php?prod=810.4005

 

[dh4234]

Question for all who had a cracked front diff housing...

My 22 Platinum Powerboost just hit 12k miles, and I’ve started noticing a vibration in my gas pedal (and driver floor area) in the past couple of months. Sometimes it feels fine, others its an “oscillating” type of vibration and can get annoying. Happens even with the engine off, coasting in electric around 50mph, so it’s not that.

I’ve felt a similar vibration before when throwing the truck in 4A or 4H, and now it just feels like it’s partially engaged even in 2H. I cycle 4A/4H every once in a while.

Back in December, I pulled the truck into the garage at work and noticed a smallish clear oil puddle under the front of truck. Didn’t match engine oil, but didn’t know what it could be. Definitely oil. No engine lights.

I guess I’m gonna have to crawl under the truck tomorrow and inspect the front diff. But my gut has always been telling me the vibration is somewhere around the front diff. I’ve read through every page of this thread looking to see if there was a correlation...

Any thoughts?

That's what the diff fluid looks like. It's a translucent off-white grayish color. Also, check your drive shaft. The F-150's had a recall for the underbody insulation that can come loose and touch the drive shaft.

 

[Rippy]

Why should you have to brace anything for normal use? Ford made bad front differentials and unreliable trucks. This cost me and a lot of others a lot of money. They are relying on blind brand loyalty. Run away and take your licking, it will save you money in the long run.

 

[halbritt]

Status update: dealer is doing a warranty repair, but they’re way backed up, and asking me to leave my truck there, they can’t say when they’ll get started and when they do it’ll be 7-10 days because they don’t keep shims on hand and would need to order them.

I’ll take it in next week alonh with a Torsen diff I picked up, I’ll whine about the duration and ask them to do me a solid and install the Torsen for me while fixing the rest.

As for a design flaw, I’m not so sure. Same design has been used for quite some time. Friend has a 13th gen, and the part numbers are the same. Reports I’m seeing suggest that this is happening most often on ‘21s, so maybe a bad batch of castings or a new supplier or some such.

I ordered the VAS differential brace and will install it after the warranty repair. Hopefully that addresses the issue. It was built for folks that do really hard 4wd launches in high HP trucks, so, maybe.

Noticed that I posted this on April 29. I took my truck in to be repaired in Early May and got it back on July 15. That's after having in for a week in early April for a "Diagnosis". After I took it back in, I got a call from the Service Advisor asking what I had done. The diff was full of water, and one of the half shafts was ruined. I explained that none of this should have been a surprise to them given their week of "diagnosis" and that the diff being full of water is the likely result of having been split in half and driven in wet conditions while I waited for parts. The ruined half shaft was likely the result of all of the bearing surfaces in the diff suddenly going into misalignment while under power.

They said they'd do me a favor and fix it under warranty. I told them not to do me any favors and fix it under warranty in any case. Contacted Ford and got a case going with them. The CSR did little more relay messages from the dealer and thankfully coordinated a rental for me. There was a series of delays while they waited for shims, which is ridiculous as I can have a full kit of 8.8 diff shims arrive at my house tomorrow for $50. One bright side to all this is that they did install the Torsen diff for me with no drama.

When it was all done, I was without my truck for several months, and Ford was out >$3k on a rental, then there was all the time consumed by coordination and communication. Frankly, I'd have been better off paying the gear shop down the street that I've used for years to do this. Would've cost me a few grand, but it would've been done in a day or two and I'd have more faith that the gears were meshed correctly.

I have the VAS brace. I'll need to figure out how to make that work with the skid plate.

Edit: As for the rental, the dealer covered the first $1k, and I covered the remaining $2k plus on the basis of the Ford CSR promising that I would be reimbursed and reimburse me they did by sending me a "loyalty" debit card that can be used for purchases, but not for ATM withdrawals or cash transfers and also doesn't seem to work with any transfer service like Paypal, Moneygram or what have you.

 

[jhelrey]

Question for all who had a cracked front diff housing...

My 22 Platinum Powerboost just hit 12k miles, and I’ve started noticing a vibration in my gas pedal (and driver floor area) in the past couple of months. Sometimes it feels fine, others its an “oscillating” type of vibration and can get annoying. Happens even with the engine off, coasting in electric around 50mph, so it’s not that.

I’ve felt a similar vibration before when throwing the truck in 4A or 4H, and now it just feels like it’s partially engaged even in 2H. I cycle 4A/4H every once in a while.

Back in December, I pulled the truck into the garage at work and noticed a smallish clear oil puddle under the front of truck. Didn’t match engine oil, but didn’t know what it could be. Definitely oil. No engine lights.

I guess I’m gonna have to crawl under the truck tomorrow and inspect the front diff. But my gut has always been telling me the vibration is somewhere around the front diff. I’ve read through every page of this thread looking to see if there was a correlation...

Any thoughts?

What did the dealership find?

 

[kcarter]

What did the dealership find?

@jhelrey Diff is not cracked, but I still get the intermittent vibration discussed above. No leakage either from the housing. 4x4 has been working flawlessly in the snow, too.

Truck is going into the dealer on Tuesday for P01AE Starter Belt/Alternator failure and recalls. Just crossed over 20k miles this past week.

 

[brfertig]

Has anyone seen this happening with the 23 models? Wonder if they worked this out by 23MY. I have 300 miles on my new 23MY. Now I have something else I have to worry about since I just lifted it and put 35s under it.

 

[fordtruckman2003]

Has anyone seen this happening with the 23 models? Wonder if they worked this out by 23MY. I have 300 miles on my new 23MY. Now I have something else I have to worry about since I just lifted it and put 35s under it.

I think one of the recent posts was a 23. Casting issue could be any year. As for worrying about it, I wouldn't worry. This is a rare event even though you can easily find the 20 ish posts on it across several forums.

 

[JExpedition07]

I think one of the recent posts was a 23. Casting issue could be any year. As for worrying about it, I wouldn't worry. This is a rare event even though you can easily find the 20 ish posts on it across several forums.

Realistically you are correct, there are maybe 20 posts yet several million 14th gen’s sold. Whats the failure rate, 0.000000000000001%? Even if there were 500 posts, that’s still low.

 

[fordtruckman2003]

Realistically you are correct, there are maybe 20 posts yet several million 14th gen’s sold. Whats the failure rate, 0.000000000000001%? Even if there were 500 posts, that’s still low.

That's why I don't lose sleep over everything I see on a forum.

Definitely a casting defect evident in all the photos online. Unknown number could happen and never go online to complain about it.

Unless it happens on highway at speed I don't see it being a recall even if we start seeing weekly posts here.

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