Zapper2003

I just joined the page on facebook. Thanks for the add.

Had my girlfriend try the local Ford dealership parts dept. today. I told her to make sure she took the VIN with her as they seem to always need it. Long story short, he input the VIN and the Ford P/N listed at the top of this article and he says that the part number does not cross/belong with the vehicle (08 Edge). So, what parts department do you all go through? I figured there would be an issue with this route. I really want to see inside the box and see what all comes with the kit.

Ok, Not a difficult thing to do lol. I would probably just lift the car and let the tires rotate without actually rolling. Too much work to put it up and down a bunch of times.

That's what I've been thinking. The kero flushes you're talking about, after drain plug install, are you simply draining fluid, adding kero and running a mile or two, draining, and topping off again?

Now I'm really curious as to what's in the box with this 'idler gear' kit. Is it just a gear and a kiss on the cheek? Or is it all of the seals/deflectors/gaskets etc that will be needed to complete the job? Probability of ZappersLaw says it's as cheap and simple as it can be (you know, to Ford's $$ advantage). If I'm going to yank this PTU out, I'd rather do it once instead of two or three times. On that note, is it usually the idler that fails? Obviously sludge doesn't lubricate, but what exactly fails, and is an idler alone going to be enough to fix a not-yet-broken PTU?

I guess now more than ever is the time to yank it out, get it opened up and check things out for excessive wear, and replace the thing with the idler if necessary. At the very least, it needs cleaned out and a drain installed.

The mechanics of it do not bother me a bit. I know its sludgy in there. I did a mity vac type of fluid exchange yesterday, and I know that it's gunky inside just by the feeling shoving the hose in there and with what has come out of the unit. When I was first aware of the problem, we had the puking vent/slight leak under the car. Checked the fluid level and came out dry, except for some sludge on my piece of wire that I used to check level.

Same kind of noise we're experiencing. Sounds exactly as omar said, like a sloppy rearend gear. Ours seems to be while turning, slightly uphill, and during a downshift.

I just watched a MacT video on youtube yesterday. I'll check it out.

Has anyone successfully cleaned out a gunked up PTU? The girlfriends 2008 Edge Limited AWD has 122k miles on it, and last oil change (120k) I topped off the PTU, and it seems like the internals are gunked up with jellied, baked fluid. I know this usually leads to failure, but before it goes that far and gets expensive, I'd like to get it cleaned out. I know a lot of people say to keep exchanging fluids until they clean up, but I'm going to be there a lonnnng time before that ever happens. I used a sucker-gun and got about 1/3 of the total capacity out today and exchanged with fresh fluid, but I know that's a feeble attempt. I have the factory service manual, and I know it says nothing internally is servicable, but that's not my concern. I just want to take it out, install a drain plug, split the case and clean the internals, seal it back up and reinstall with new seals. I've done quite a bit of googling, I see lots of pictures of cooked PTU's taken apart showing how gunked the internals are, but never found any threads leading me to my answer. Also, would popping the cap off the vent and running a hose up into the engine bay solve some of the 'puking' issues? My fear is that it's already on its way out, as the car has started in on a random 'thud' (very seldom, at this point) while turning a corner at any speed, randomly, for no apparent reason. Seems like it's coming from the PTU/driveshaft area. I took a look at the roll restrictor mounted below the PTU and it looks weird, but I've never seen another one to compare. Best I can tell from looking at pictures online is that it looks goofy even when new, so I doubt that the mount could be causing the sound, as I would think it'd be more often than during a random turn at speed. Any insight would be awesome and greatly appreciated.