1997 Ford Expedition 5.4 4 Wheel Drive similar to Ford Pickup

I found the fuse for the 4wd , transfer-case motor. When you’re looking under the hood at the fuse block. It’s the right bank, 3rd 50 amp fuse from the bottom. So if you are on the driver side of the vehicle looking at the fuse block. It’s  3 fuses up from the bottom on the right side.

If You Need To Speed up you PC Speedster-pc.com

On April 1st 2006 I received a phone call that my beautiful 27  year old daughter had drowned in Orlando Florida. I raced around getting ready for the drive to Orlando. At this perfect time our 97 Expedition started running very bad. I plugged my hand held scanner into the port and got a P0303 misfire on cylinder 3. To much going on and I had to leave for Orlando right away. So I asked a friend who the director of  local 501c3 charity if she knew any good mechanics. She referred to a shop that did work on their vehicles for just the cost of parts. I doped the 97 Expedition off and left for Florida. This is the first time in my life I have ever dropped off a vehicle and said fix it without knowing what it would cost.  I told him the story about my daughter and that I usually did my own work. Thinking that he would not rip me off.

I returned 3 weeks later and went to pick up the 97 Expedition. The bill was $540.00, I said what did you have to do?  So he told me this.  He had run a diagnostic check to find the problem $60.00. He then changed the #3 spark plug. That didn’t fix the problem. So he had to change the # 3 fuel injector $240.00. Then he checked the other fuel injectors $240.00. They were fine.  Total price $540.00.  I was just to depressed to argue the point, I had a choice to just cry and leave or beat him for taking advantage of me. I was depresses and beat down and very sad, I left.

I put that all behind me till last week. August 2011. The 97 Expedition started running very bad again. Plugged in the scanned to find P0303   misfire on cylinder 3. What are the chances of that. We bought this 97 Expedition with 93,000 miles and it was in great shape. We live 15 mile from the nearest town so all the miles are highway miles. The person I bought it from lives around the corner. All highway miles for as well. Now I must say I never have changed the spark plugs the whole time we have owned the 97 Expedition. It now has 186,000 miles on it. Yes the all should have been changed by now,but it has ran just fine.

I needed to make a 150 mile trip the next day. So I popped open the hood and looked at the right bank to see it was pretty dirty. It didn’t look like the #3 fuel injector was changed but it has been some time now. I unplugged each of the fuel injectors cleaned them and plugged then back in. Then I sprayed some degreaser on the engine and hosed it off. Then I cleared the codes with my scanner and started the engine. No check engine light and the engine ran fine. Now whats up with that? Why would it the problem always be on #3. I don’t know but I will change all the plugs and maybe all the coils soon. It really makes me wonder about that $540.00 but he went out of business since. The thing is he always had plenty of work, all the time. Well I got ripped off .

Hope this helps someone,

Have A great day,

Gerald McKee

This is my first article so here we go. I purchased this Expedition in 2001 with 93,000 miles on it at was perfect and well maintained. In 2005 the 4 Wheel drive quit working so I just did without, which is quite difficult seeing how I live in Northern Michigan, and we get a lot of snow. My wife found a plow truck for sale about 100 miles from where we live and we bought it. So we parked the 97 Expedition and used the 97 Dodge ram 2500 in the winter. In 2006 I decided to fix The 97 Expedition, so I took the Expedition to dealer for them to fix it. My daughter had just drowned in Orlando and I was too depressed to work on it myself.

The dealer took in my Expedition and I asked for an estimate before I would let them fix it. They worked for about 2 hours while I waited, and they told me I needed a new Actuator for the front axle and a new Transfer-case motor. The cost will be about $535.00 and they had to order the parts.

I left the Dealer and stopped  at the grocery store, it had just snowed about 4″ and when I left I turned right and hit the gas, Low and behold I saw snow coming front the left front tire, Yes the 4 wheel drive works. I took it out the next day and checked it again, and it still worked. I called the Dealer and told them to cancel the parts order. The next day the Dealer called and asked if I would pay them $65.00 for their time.  I thought about it and decided that whoever goes to the Dealer and gets their car fixed for $65.00. And I felt the mechanic needed to paid for his time.  My wife on the other hand said they tried to rip us off and we should not pay them anything. Well did pay them but they weren’t trying to rip us off, they had no clue what was wrong with the 97 Expedition.

The next season the 4 wheel drive didn’t work, now what I am I going to do? I looked on an online forum and they said the transfer-case motor is the problem.  The problem was the computer gets confused when the switch position inside the transfer-case motor doesn’t lineup.  This is why I didn’t have any indicator lights on the dash lit. I jacked up the 97 Expedition and took out the transfer-case motor. It was no easy task seeing the exhaust was in the way. I was going to open it up and see if the contacts on the switch were corroded. Well the transfer-case motor was put together with security screws, I had no security bits, the transfer-case motor didn’t look that bad so I put it back in. Had to splice the wires to the transfer-case motor because there wasn’t a plug for the motor. This didn’t make me happy all I can think is all salt water from the road will cause corrosion. I used water resistant spades and wrapped well with black electrical tape. I hope this holds up under the adverse conditions.

I waited tell the next season and thought I would try again. I looked online again and found another forum. A man said he didn’t have any 4 wheel drive indicator lights on the dash, so he pulled out all the fuses one at a time and put them back in. Well I had tested all the fusses with a test light and they checked out good. I didn’t take them out, so I pulled and replaced all the fusses and low and behold I had indicator lights for the transfer-case. Yea team so I thought, the transfer-case would shift into low-rang but no 4 wheel drive. Well am farther along than I had been for some time.

Now I am thinking the front axle Actuator must be bad. So back online a different forum, I see someone found that their plastic vacuum lines had cracked and there was no vacuum getting to the front actuator. So I crawled under the front of the 97 Expedition and took off the cover to the actuator (3 small bolts very easy 10mm I think). With the engine running and the selector switch turned to 4×4, I took off the vacuum line to the actuator and there was no vacuum on the line. The lines looked good by the axle so I traced them back to engine compartment. I lost track of them by the battery try, I took out the battery and battery tray that was quite easy. There between where the battery tray and the firewall were the vacuum lines and an electric valve to engage the 4×4. Again with the engine running and the selector switch turned to 4×4 I check to see if the valve was engaging and letting vacuum through. No vacuum coming through the valve in fact no vacuum coming to the valve.

During all of this I cracked two lines. They were easily spliced with rubber vacuum line, like about 2 inches. Still no vacuum well I disconnected the vacuum line going to the valve (The vacuum line that feeds the valve). I looked around and saw a vacuum line on the driver side that runs the vapor canister (I think that’s what it is). I disconnected that vacuum line and rout it over to run the actuator valve. Two thing happened first my check engine light went out (go figure don’t even care about that now) seconded when turned the selector switch to 4×4 the front axle engaged right away. Yea team we have four wheel drive. So the Dealer must have reset the computer by tampering with everything. This is the same thing as pulling and replacing the fusses. The next problem was insufficient vacuum going to the actuator valve.

All of this aggravation and all I had to do was first pull and replace fusses and the check between the battery tray and the fire wall. I wonder how many trans-case motors and actuators get replaced for no reason. The Dealer said to run the four wheel drive every few week of a minute of two to keep everything working. I really don’t know why the computer gets confused for no reason, but I guess it does. During all of this I did disconnect the battery and short the terminals to rest the computer, but I can’t remember when, but that didn’t work anyway.

If you have trouble with your four wheel drive I hope this helps.

Have a great day,

Gerald McKee

I’m just getting started so you may want to look at the welcome page