Hello all, I have a 98 F150 5.4 4wd E4OD Tranny and I have had a persistent (and very annoying) noise coming from somewhere in the front end I believe and out of curiosity I decided to check out my CV's today and discovered this. Is this normal?

 

Yes that's normal

 

Yep... it's fine.

 

Check your front hubs, I had the bearings out on both mine last summer with less than 88,000 miles on them.

 

This is the strange noise I hear whenever I'm going between 25-45.
Is this differential noise?
Axle bearing noise?

Both front hub assemblies have been replaced.

 

May I ask what brand hubs you used?

 

Precision Brand

 

Is this a sign of a worn pinion bearing or ring gear?
The diff casing gets quite hot where the pinion bearing would be (can't keep my hand on it for more than 2 seconds)
I also have what could be described as gear slop when I put it in drive. It kinda softly lurches with what feels like every rotation of the ring gear.

 

Looks like normal backlash in the gears

 

I'm just worried about the loud *Bang* when I put it in reverse. What about the hot casing? Could it be something as simple as low gear oil?